Derren Brown's Blog, page 26
June 16, 2011
RSA Animate – The Paradox of Choice
RSA animate create another gem of animation and insight with their latest release. In this episode Renata Salecl - a senior researcher at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law at the University of Ljubljana and visiting professor at the University of London – explains the Paradox of choice.
In the days of communism choice wasn't freely available, all resources and the means of production were controlled by the government. When choice became ubiquitous it created a layer of anxiety in people.
Renata explores these ideas in beautifully animated words.
June 15, 2011
Scientists create hottest substance on Earth
Scientists using the world's largest atom smasher have made some of the hottest and densest matter ever achieved on Earth.
The state of matter called a quark gluon plasma existed in the milliseconds after the big bang 13.7 billion years ago.
Physicists using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research, smashed heavy lead ions together at close to the speed of light.
They generated temperatures of more than 1.6 trillion degrees Celsius, 100,000 times hotter than the centre of the Sun.
In the process they recreated the densest material ever observed – only black holes are denser.
Tonight the moon will turn red
Tonight (around 9.15 for people in the UK) the moon will turn a deep, spooky red as a result of a lunar eclipse, the phenomenon will continue until midnight. In India it will be viewed as a 100 minute long full lunar eclipse so there should be plenty of footage posted on you tube – do send us your favourites.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes behind the earth so that the earth blocks the sun's rays from striking the moon. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, there is always a full moon the night of a lunar eclipse.
The colouring effect comes from the penumbra (the less darker shadows) of the earth filtering out the blue light rays and turning the moon red.
More info at Wikipedia
June 14, 2011
Bento Box technology – very slick design thinking
Bento is quite an exceptional and forward thinking concept by René Woo-Ram Lee. If features all the toys you'd love to own truly integrating in to one device. It's a clever little concept with forward thinking built in.
Head over to Yankodesign for a lot more visuals.
10 Ways Our Minds Warp Time
The mind does funny things to our experience of time. Just ask French cave expert Michel Siffre.
In 1962 Siffre went to live in a cave that was completely isolated from mechanical clocks and natural light. He soon began to experience a huge change in his experience of time.
When he tried to measure out two minutes by counting up to 120 at one-second intervals, it took him 5 minutes. After emerging from the cave he guessed the trip had lasted 34 days. He'd actually been down there for 59 days. His experience of time was rapidly changing. From an outside perspective he was slowing down, but the psychological experience for Siffre was that time was speeding up.
But you don't have to hide out in a cave for a couple of months to warp time, it happens to us all the time. Our experience of time is flexible; it depends on attention, motivation, the emotions and more. The 10 listed in the following article are: Life-threatening situations, having fun, the stopped clock illusion, tiredness, regulating emotions, hypnosis and drugs, your age, negative feelings, body temperature and your own individual "tempo".
For full explanations of all 10 head over to PsyBlog
June 12, 2011
The (new) World's Shortest Man
Move over, Edward Nino Hernandez, there's a new smallest man in town. Junrey Balawing of Zamboanga del Norte, who turns 18 today, measures only 24 inches from head to foot lying down and just over 23 inches standing up.
Balawing, the eldest of four siblings, is not only the shortest living man, but the shortest living man in history, the Guinness World Records said.
Happy Birthday dude.
More at Neatorama
June 10, 2011
Contortionist hid in luggage so he could steal from other bags
A man has been arrested in Spain after curling up inside a large suitcase that was placed in an airport bus cargo bay and sneaking out to steal from other people's luggage.
A police official in the north-eastern Catalonia region said on Thursday that the man arrested last week was very thin.
Also arrested was an accomplice who placed the contortionist thief inside the cargo hold of a bus running from Girona airport to Barcelona, boarded the bus and then retrieved him at the end of the line.
During the 60-mile (100km) ride, the thief would slip out of the suitcase and use a sharp object to pick locks or open zips to steal from bags. Police were alerted by bus passengers who reported items stolen from their baggage.
June 9, 2011
What is Stuxnet? Excellent infographic animation on the world's first open source weapon
Conspiracy theory or scary technology future. You decide whilst we sit back and watch some very clever animation.
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