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10 Oct 21:25

This guy again!

Submitted by: ale1509
Posted at: 2012-10-10 00:20:23
See full post and comment: http://9gag.com/gag/5566612


10 Oct 11:33

Socorro, não consigo mais ler livros.

by Wagner Brenner

Não consigo mais ler livros.
Não que eu não queira. Simplesmente não consigo.

Sou um leitor, desde que me entendo por gente.

Sempre li muito. E continuo lendo.

Mas de uns anos para cá, me alimentar compulsivamente através da internet tem causado em mim um efeito colateral que ainda não consigo explicar muito bem.

Só sei que agora, toda vez que pego um livro nas mãos, não consigo ler, canso rápido. Se o texto não “embala” logo, preciso de muito esforço para continuar com a leitura.

E não é só com o livro de papel. A mesma coisa acontece com o livro digital. Não tem nada a ver com essa comparação tão debatida.

Tem a ver com o tamanho do texto.

Essa situção tem me deixado agustiado.

Será que desaprendi a ler? Será que fiquei preguiçoso?

Será que agora só consigo ler coisas curtinhas e, de preferência, com uns links?

Acho que não.

Na verdade, nunca li tanto como agora. Passo o dia inteiro lendo. Mais leio cacos, fragmentos.

Sim, o efeito é conhecido e foi previsto anos atrás.

Sai o disco, entra a música.
Sai o filme, entra a série.
Sai a série, entra o curta do Youtube.
Sai a mesa de bar, entra o Facebook.
Sai o livro, entra o post, o artigo.

Tudo o que era consumido em pacote-família, em tabletão, agora é consumido em formato M&M’s.

A gente já sabia que isso acontecer, faz tempo. Mas o que eu ainda não tinha sentido na pele é que esse fenômeno do snack culture iria me TIRAR algo e me IMPEDIR de ler textos longos. Porque uma coisa é você perceber que existe uma nova maneira de ler (circular e não linear) e passar a usá-la.

Outra coisa é você perder sua capacidade de concentração.

Eu queria adicionar o jeito novo, mas não queria perder o jeito velho.

A internet causou em mim (e talvez em você) um déficit de atenção, um transtorno que consta da classificação interncional de doenças e que requer acompanhamento médico (não que eu tenha procurado um, pelo menos por enquanto).

Já tentei de tudo, busquei aquelas ficções bacanas, cheias de escapismo, com viagens para lugares distantes, coisas que eu devorava durante a adolescência…mas 10 minutos depois o que escapa é minha atenção mesmo.

Fico voltando para o começo do parágrafo, sabe? Nem a biografia do Steve Jobs eu consegui terminar.

Fico repetindo para o autor “vai, já entendi, conta logo, pára de enrolar”.

Esse é outro sintoma: fiquei mais factual e perco fácil a paciência com aquela fase de contextualização e envolvimento com os personagens.

Meu kindle tem, neste exato momento, a ridícula marca de 18 livros iniciados.

Estou fazendo com eles a mesma coisa que faço com as músicas no meu iPhone, que fatalmente acabam tomando uma “skipada” depois de alguns segundos (tirando as do Zappa, que felizmente ainda ouço cada nota com prazer até o fim). Pô, eu ouvia aqueles álbuns inteiros do Pink Floyd… agora isso seria inimaginável.

Sei que isso tudo soa como algo ruim, mas nem isso eu tenho certeza.

A civilização humana já passou por isso muito antes da internet, por exemplo quando passamos da comunicação exclusivamente oral e acrescentamos a escrita. Colocar conteúdo por escrito livrou nossa memória e permitiu textos bem mais longos e precisos. Agora estamos de volta aos conteúdos curtos, mas ainda mais precisos. E, se um dia desenvolvermos a telepatia, certamente as palavras vão nos parecer ineficientes demais. Formas diferentes de trocar conteúdos, histórias.

Enfim, um post pouco conclusivo, mais desabafo mesmo, para ver se tem mais gente nesse barco.

Estou assustado por não conseguir mais ler um livro inteiro.




09 Oct 21:36

October 09, 2012


09 Oct 15:22

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 awarded to Gurdon, Yamanaka

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has awarded The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.

The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialized cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body. Their findings have revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop, the The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet said in a statement.

John B. Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialization of cells is reversible. In a classic experiment, he replaced the immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog with the nucleus from a mature intestinal cell. This modified egg cell developed into a normal tadpole. The DNA of the mature cell still had all the information needed to develop all cells in the frog.

Shinya Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later, in 2006, how intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells. Surprisingly, by introducing only a few genes, he could reprogram mature cells to become pluripotent stem cells, i.e. immature cells that are able to develop into all types of cells in the body.

These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation. We now understand that the mature cell does not have to be confined forever to its specialised state. Textbooks have been rewritten and new research fields have been established. By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy.

Life – a journey towards increasing specialisation

All of us developed from fertilized egg cells. During the first days after conception, the embryo consists of immature cells, each of which is capable of developing into all the cell types that form the adult organism. Such cells are called pluripotent stem cells. With further development of the embryo, these cells give rise to nerve cells, muscle cells, liver cells and all other cell types – each of them specialised to carry out a specific task in the adult body. This journey from immature to specialised cell was previously considered to be unidirectional. It was thought that the cell changes in such a way during maturation that it would no longer be possible for it to return to an immature, pluripotent stage.

Frogs jump backwards in development

John B. Gurdon challenged the dogma that the specialised cell is irreversibly committed to its fate. He hypothesised that its genome might still contain all the information needed to drive its development into all the different cell types of an organism. In 1962, he tested this hypothesis by replacing the cell nucleus of a frog’s egg cell with a nucleus from a mature, specialised cell derived from the intestine of a tadpole. The egg developed into a fully functional, cloned tadpole and subsequent repeats of the experiment yielded adult frogs. The nucleus of the mature cell had not lost its capacity to drive development to a fully functional organism.

Gurdon’s landmark discovery was initially met with scepticism but became accepted when it had been confirmed by other scientists. It initiated intense research and the technique was further developed, leading eventually to the cloning of mammals. Gurdon’s research taught us that the nucleus of a mature, specialized cell can be returned to an immature, pluripotent state. But his experiment involved the removal of cell nuclei with pipettes followed by their introduction into other cells. Would it ever be possible to turn an intact cell back into a pluripotent stem cell?

A roundtrip journey – mature cells return to a stem cell state

Shinya Yamanaka was able to answer this question in a scientific breakthrough more than 40 years after Gurdon´s discovery. His research concerned embryonal stem cells, i.e. pluripotent stem cells that are isolated from the embryo and cultured in the laboratory. Such stem cells were initially isolated from mice by Martin Evans (Nobel Prize 2007) and Yamanaka tried to find the genes that kept them immature. When several of these genes had been identified, he tested whether any of them could reprogram mature cells to become pluripotent stem cells.

Yamanaka and his co-workers introduced these genes, in different combinations, into mature cells from connective tissue, fibroblasts, and examined the results under the microscope. They finally found a combination that worked, and the recipe was surprisingly simple. By introducing four genes together, they could reprogram their fibroblasts into immature stem cells!

The resulting induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) could develop into mature cell types such as fibroblasts, nerve cells and gut cells. The discovery that intact, mature cells could be reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells was published in 2006 and was immediately considered a major breakthrough.

From surprising discovery to medical use

The discoveries of Gurdon and Yamanaka have shown that specialised cells can turn back the developmental clock under certain circumstances. Although their genome undergoes modifications during development, these modifications are not irreversible. We have obtained a new view of the development of cells and organisms.

Research during recent years has shown that iPS cells can give rise to all the different cell types of the body. These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine. iPS cells can also be prepared from human cells.

For instance, skin cells can be obtained from patients with various diseases, reprogrammed, and examined in the laboratory to determine how they differ from cells of healthy individuals. Such cells constitute invaluable tools for understanding disease mechanisms and so provide new opportunities to develop medical therapies.

Sir John B. Gurdon was born in 1933 in Dippenhall, UK. He received his Doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1960 and was a postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology. He joined Cambridge University, UK, in 1972 and has served as Professor of Cell Biology and Master of Magdalene College. Gurdon is currently at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge.

Shinya Yamanaka was born in Osaka, Japan in 1962. He obtained his MD in 1987 at Kobe University and trained as an orthopaedic surgeon before switching to basic research. Yamanaka received his PhD at Osaka City University in 1993, after which he worked at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco and Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. Yamanaka is currently Professor at Kyoto University and also affiliated with the Gladstone Institute.

 

09 Oct 15:15

Classroom Portraits

Tadeu

(Click on [link])

09 Oct 11:24

Curiosity Finds…SOMETHING…on Martian Surface

by Jason Major

While scooping its first samples of Martian soil, NASA’s Curiosity rover captured the image above, which shows what seems to be a small, seemingly metallic sliver or chip of… something… resting on the ground. Is it a piece of the rover? Or some other discarded fleck of the MSL descent mechanisms? Or perhaps an exotic Martian pebble of some sort? Nobody knows for sure yet, but needless to say the soil samples have taken a back seat to this new finding for the time being.

See a ChemCam image of the object below.

(...)
Read the rest of Curiosity Finds…SOMETHING…on Martian Surface (192 words)

© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 54 comments |
Post tags: Curiosity, Mars, metal, MSL, object

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09 Oct 11:20

Calvin and Hobbes for October 04, 2012

09 Oct 11:15

Mmmm... Interesting

Submitted by: rafan_12
Posted at: 2012-10-08 10:20:58
See full post and comment: http://9gag.com/gag/5553411


09 Oct 11:08

Matemática pode revolucionar tecnologia das baterias de lítio

Como a convivência entre humanos e baterias está ficando cada vez mais duradoura, "sim" e "não" não é mais suficiente para sustentar esse relacionamento.
09 Oct 11:06

Brainless slime mold uses external spatial ‘memory’ to navigate complex environments

Photograph of P. polycephalum plasmodium showing (A) extending pseudopod, (B) search front, (C) tubule network, and (D) extracellular slime deposited where the cell has previously explored. The food disk containing the inoculation of plasmodial culture is depicted at (E). (Credit: Chris R. Reid et al./PNAS)

They only have a single cell — no brain, but slime molds “remember” where they’ve been.

How? The brainless slime mold Physarum polycephalum constructs a form of spatial “memory” by avoiding areas it has previously explored, researchers at University of Sydney and Université Toulouse III have discovered.

“As it moves, the plasmodium leaves behind a thick mat of nonliving, translucent, extracellular slime,” the scientists said in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 8.

“As the plasmodium is foraging, we found. that it strongly avoids areas that contain extracellular slime. This avoidance behavior is a ‘choice’ because when no previously unexplored territory is available, the slime mold no longer avoids extracellular slime.”

 The finding is strong support for the theory that the first step toward the evolution of memory was the use of feedback from chemicals.

How to navigate a complex environment without a brain

“We have shown for the first time that a single-celled organism with no brain uses an external spatial memory to navigate through a complex environment,” said Christopher Reid from the University’s School of Biological Sciences.

“Our discovery is evidence of how the memory of multi-cellular organisms may have evolved — by using external chemical trails in the environment before the development of internal memory systems,” said Reid.

“Results from insect studies, for example ants leaving pheromone trails, have already challenged the assumption that navigation requires learning or a sophisticated spatial awareness. We’ve now gone one better and shown that even an organism without a nervous system can navigate a complex environment, with the help of externalized memory.”

Setup for the U-shaped trap navigational task. The red dashed line shows the predicted optimal path. (Credit: Chris R. Reid et al./PNAS)

The research method was inspired by robots designed to respond only to feedback from their immediate environment to navigate obstacles and avoid becoming trapped. This “reactive navigation” method allows robots to navigate without a programmed map or the ability to build one and slime molds use the same process.

The researchers used a classic test of independent navigational ability, commonly used in robotics, requiring the slime mold to navigate its way out of a U-shaped barrier.

When it is foraging, the slime mold avoids areas that it has already “slimed,” suggesting it can sense extracellular slime upon contact and will recognize and avoid areas it has already explored.

“This shows it is using a form of external spatial memory to more efficiently explore its environment,” said Reid.

“We then upped the ante for the slime mulds by challenging them with the U-shaped trap problem to test their navigational ability in a more complex situation than foraging. We found that, as we had predicted, its success was greatly dependent on being able to apply its external spatial memory to navigate its way out of the trap.”

In simple environments the use of externalized spatial memory is not necessary for effective navigation but in more complex situations it significantly enhances the organism’s chance of success, just as it does for robots using reactive navigation.

No support was found for the rumor that Ghostbusters were involved in the research. — Ed.

 

09 Oct 03:08

Microsoft

Facebook, Apple, and Google all got away with their monopolist power grabs because they don't have any 'S's in their names for critics to snarkily replace with '$'s.
09 Oct 02:42

The Astrophysicist’s Alphabet

by Ethan

“When I was having that alphabet soup, I never thought that it would pay off.” -Vanna White

Ever want an A-to-Z illustrated alphabet of astrophysics? Turns out that — other than writing your own via Galaxy Zoo — it doesn’t yet exist. So I thought it would be delightful to make one for you… right now!

Image credit: Flickr user Image Editor / 11304375@N07.

A is for Aurora, polar lights fast and slow,
the Sun’s hot electrons make the atmosphere glow.

Image credit: Andrew Hamilton of JILA / Colorado, http://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/insidebh/schw.html.

B is for Black hole, a star’s collapsed heart,
once matter falls in, it will never depart.

Image credit: Comet West, retrieved from Cathy at http://www.rwaurigae.org/.

C is for Comet, with tails, dust, and ice,
a trip near the Sun makes them look very nice!

Image credit: STScI / NASA, ESA, R. Bouwens and G. Illingworth (UCSC).

D is for Doppler, turning galaxies red,
if you’re far, you’ll move fast, faster, fastest; you sped!

Image credit: Miloslav Druckmuller (Brno U. of Tech.), Peter Aniol, and Vojtech Rusin.

E is for Eclipse, where the Moon, Earth and Sun
cast light-blocking shadows, and cause tons of fun.

Image credit: Flickr user Image Editor / 11304375@N07.

F is for Fusion, that powers the stars,
nuclei join together, and the light is all ours!

Image credit: Dean Rowe of http://deanrowe.net/astro/.

G is for Galaxies, in clusters and groups,
with billions to find, no wonder we’re snoops!

Image credit: NASA / Space Shuttle, from 1997.

H is for Hubble, the telescope from space,
the sights it has seen help the whole human race.

Image credit: Robert Gendler of http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/Biography.html.

I is for Ions, who make gas glow so bright,
when they find electrons, we see colorful light.

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al.; Submillimeter: MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al.; Optical: ESO/WFI.

J is for Jets, from a galaxy’s core,
when it eats and spits matter, they’re active once more!

Image credit: © 2007 Dorling Kindersley.

K is for Kelvin, with Helmholtz, stars will cool,
so white dwarfs fade to black, it’s a great cosmic rule.

Image credit: Cleon Teunissen of http://www.cleonis.nl/temp/libration.htm.

L is for Libration, which makes our Moon rock,
it’s a trick of the orbit; it’s tidally locked!

Image credit: Fred Bruenjes of Moonglow Observatory; 253 meteors from the 2007 Perseids.

M is for Meteors, which come in a shower,
at the right time of year, you’ll see hundreds an hour!

Image credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

N is for Nebula, planetary, in this case,
when the Sun’s out of fuel, this is our fate in space.

Image credit: Axel Mellinger.

O is for Opaque, why the Milky Way’s dark,
without dust to block it, starlight would be stark!

Image credit: Optical: NASA/HST/ASU/J. Hester et al. X-Ray: NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester et al..

P is for Pulsar, a spinning neutron star,
as the orbits tick by, we know just when we are.

Image credit: K. Sharon (Tel Aviv U.) and E. Ofek (Caltech), ESA, NASA.

Q is for Quasars, great radio sources,
distant, active galaxies eating like horses!

Image credit: NASA / Cassini / the CICLOPS team.

R is for Rings, all gas giants possess them,
even one found in another sun’s system!

Image credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA.

S is for Spacetime, which curves due to matter,
this Universe-fabric, it bends but won’t shatter!

Image credit: High-Z Supernova Search Team, HST, NASA, of SN 1994D.

T is Type Ia, the best known supernova,
when White Dwarfs collapse, your distance? We’ll know ‘ya!

Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team; stitching of the HUDF and the XDF fields by me.

U is the Universe, which we’re still understanding,
with billions of galaxies, our spacetime’s expanding!

Image credit: Antoine Vergara Astrophotography.

V is for Virgo, our nearest great cluster,
with 1000+ galaxies, it’s a massive gut-buster!

Image credit: Nigel Sharp, Kitts Peak National Observatory/NOAO/AURA/NSF.

W is for wavelength, the energies of light,
it’s how we know what atoms are in stars just from sight!

Image credit: ESO, APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO), A. Weiss et al., NASA Spitzer Science Center.

X is for X-rays, which find starbursts (in red),
where the most massive galaxies form stars dead ahead.

Image credit: Larry McNish from RASC Calgary Centre.

Y is the Year, where we orbit our Sun,
each planet is different; the Earth is just one.

Image credit: The Milky Way through a Fisheye Lens, from Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Z is for Zenith, so gaze up towards the sky!
The Universe is here; let’s learn what, how and why.

09 Oct 02:28

Photo: i don't know man, i just - what if he really did throw the tennis ball, you know?

845

This troubled canine ponders the deep mysteries of life.

08 Oct 21:40

Space Shuttle Atlantis hands-on: a look inside (video)

by Alexis Santos

Space Shuttle Atlantis hands-on: a look inside (video)

Space Shuttles Discovery, Endeavour and Enterprise have all left Kennedy Space Center for new homes, but Atlantis? She's staying. Come November 2nd, the orbiter will be wheeled out to a 65,000-square-foot exhibit, which is still being constructed at KSC's visitor complex. Though the craft's cargo bay doors will be open and its remote manipulator arm extended when its displayed, visitors won't be able to climb aboard it -- or any of the other shuttles, for that matter. However, we got the chance to visit Bay 2 of the Orbiter Processing Facility, step inside Atlantis and give it the hands-on treatment. Look out below for the gallery or hit the jump for the full video tour.

Gallery: Inside Space Shuttle Atlantis

Continue reading Space Shuttle Atlantis hands-on: a look inside (video)

Filed under: Transportation, Science

Space Shuttle Atlantis hands-on: a look inside (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Oct 2012 14:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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08 Oct 21:39

Jaw-dropping rotating 3D nebula

by Phil Plait

A little over 2000 light years away, toward the constellation of Cepheus, is a place where stars are being born. It’s a nebula, a gas cloud, and it’s called IC 1396. It’s monstrous, well over a hundred light years across – even at its tremendous distance, it’s wider than six full Moons in our sky.

Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsävainio observed IC 1396, making a gorgeous image of it. But he wasn’t satisfied just doing that. He’d been playing with making 3D images for some time, and decided this might be a good opportunity to make a model of the structure of the nebula, and then create an animated GIF of it.

The results are… well, see for yourself:

Holy. Haleakala! [The filesize is 7Mb, so it may take a while to load.]

OK, let me be clear: this is not actually showing you the 3D structure of the nebula. It’s an approximation, a guess based on various assumptions on how nebulae are shaped. J-P broke the image up into layers, made a surface model of it, then remapped it all into different frames seen from different angles. He then put those together to make the animated ...


08 Oct 13:43

Voyager has left the Building: We are exploring Interstellar Space now

by René

Es gibt seit ein paar Jahren immer wieder Meldungen zur Voyager 1-Sonde und dass sie ja nun das Sonnensystem verlassen würde. Die NASA hat noch nichts bestätigt, offiziell befindet sich die Sonde noch in der Heliopause, der äußersten Grenze des Sonnensystems, an der der komplette Einfluss der Sonne endet.

Die Meldungen über Voyager waren bislang fast immer nur Bullshit, vor ein paar Tagen allerdings haben sich die Messwerte der Sonde drastisch verändert, so dass man davon ausgehen muss, dass sie eine gewisse Grenze überschritten hat und daher lege ich mich jetzt einfach mal fest: Wir erforschen seit ein paar Tagen als sehr wahrscheinlich allererste Spezies unseres Sonnensystems den interstellaren Raum. Where no man has gone before.

At last check, NASA scientists said they were not yet ready to officially declare that Voyager 1 had officially exited the solar system by crossing the heliopause. To cross this boundary scientists say they would need to observe three things:

1. An increase in high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our solar system
2. A drop in charged particles emanating from the sun.
3. A change in the direction of the magnetic field.

As I reported in June, in regard to the first point, scientists have observed a sustained increase in galactic cosmic rays during recent months. With respect to the second point, there has been a dramatic and sustained drop in charged particles (principally protons) originating from the Sun that have struck the spacecraft. And by dramatic, I mean dramatic.

More evidence that Voyager has exited the solar system (via )

08 Oct 10:41

Work is Exciting

by Doug

Work is Exciting

Dedicated to Heather, who is definitely not having a boring day today. It’s her birthday AND she’s jumping out of a plane for the first time. Happy birthday Heather!

Here are some more boring comics.

08 Oct 10:35

Why Build a Sun on Earth?

by noreply@blogger.com (RJ Evans)



The words nuclear fusion frighten a lot of people. Yet when (in the near future) we don’t have enough fossil fuels and sustainable energy sources such as the sun and the wind to enable everyone to have the power we need, then perhaps it’s time to look at it a little closer.

Nik Morris created this prize winning short film for use around schools in the United Kingdom.  It takes a look at the benefits of nuclear fusion research and hopefully empowers its young audiences to be part of the solution for everyone’s energy future.

Of course, for me, the real elephant in the room is global population.  Although this is nothing more than an aside here if that problem is not addressed within the next generation then we will have a planet which is hardly worth living upon, whether it is fuelled by the sun, wind, fossil fuel or nuclear fusion.
08 Oct 10:33

WIN!: Broccoli MRI WIN

WIN!: Broccoli MRI WINGlorious science, letting us see what our veggies look like from the inside out!

Submitted by: Unknown

Tagged: category:Image , fruit , mri , science , vegetable Share on Facebook
08 Oct 10:33

08. October, 2012

05 Oct 12:03

Aliens on the radio: Animal Collective is rescuing transmissions lost in space

by Simon Ward
Animal Collective

Space is full of transmissions, broadcast once then left to travel forever -- but now US band Animal Collective is rescuing them.

For Centipede Hz, the band's tenth album, they found a library of radio jingles from their Baltimore youth and embedded them into their dense music. But this isn't mere retro cool: the band want these snippets, and the surrounding radio noise, to get a second airing in the cosmos, in the hope that extraterrestrial beings will find them. 

By: Simon Ward, Edited by: Ian Steadman

Continue reading...
04 Oct 11:20

The rational bird

crow cropped.jpg A few years ago, crows mesmerized scientists and TED talkers when it became clear the birds knew how to produce and use tools, both in captivity and in the wild. A new study suggests another high-level cognitive skill in the avian toolkit: The New Caledonian crow may possess the power of causal reasoning, previously believed to exist only in humans. Discover’s 80beats blog offers a nice summary of how researchers tested for the elusive skill: They designed an experiment in which crows came to associate the presence of a large curtain with a threatening stick poking around near the their food box; when the birds were allowed to see a human leaving the curtain, they relaxed, indicating they were able to infer a human’s presence was responsible for the stick’s activity. The authors of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say that this is the first time an animal has been shown to “make inferences about hidden causal mechanisms.” It joins a list of several recent discoveries of animals performing eerily human-like functions, like the birds that conduct “funerals” for their dead peers, the apes that enjoy slapstick humor, the birds that produce art for art’s sake, and the chimpanzee that conducts rigorous studies of primate behavior. (OK, that one’s from the Onion.)

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04 Oct 09:22

Posters mostram os melhores destinos turísticos de filmes dos anos 80

by Amanda de Almeida

Imagine que você pudesse visitar lugares incríveis que só existem na ficção, para onde você gostaria de ir? Fazer um tour pelo submundo de Gotham City ou visitar a redação do melhor jornal de Metropolis? Um safári entre os orcs de Mordor? Pegar uma corzinha em Tatooine? Não é necessário ir tão longe, mas os artistas Tom Whalen e Dave Perillo criaram uma coleção de posters com destinos turísticos de filmes clássicos dos anos 80.

Em cartaz em Santa Monica, Califórnia, a mostra Around The World in an 80s Daze reúne 21 trabalhos da dupla, como o Walley World, de Férias Frustradas, a Los Angeles de O Exterminador do Futuro, a Delta City de Robocop ou ainda a Val Verde de O Predador. Springwood, de O Pesadelo, está lá, também.

Para conferir todos os posters, basta acessar o site da Gallery1988 e planejar sua viagem. Ah, caso você esteja se perguntando para onde a autora deste post iria se pudesse escolher, a resposta é: Dagobah. Explicações desnecessárias…

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