Derren Brown's Blog, page 31

How Twitter helped doctors during Japanese disaster

Doctors in Japan used Twitter to coordinate medical assistance in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country in March this year.

In a letter to The Lancet this week, Yuichi Tamura and Keiichi Fukuda of the Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo say the social networking service played a significant role in triumphing over the disaster.

The pair explain the earthquake made it difficult to ensure a continuous supply of drugs for their patients suffering chronic diseases such as pulmonary hypertension. With phone lines unreliable but internet connections still working, they turned to Twitter to help inform people where to get their medicine.

Tamura set up an account, @ut1tamura, three days after the disaster and tweeted information from his hospital computer, providing messages in Japanese such as "Patient can get the orphan drugs for pulmonary hypertension in XX hospital" or "Patient should keep additional oxygen tanks preparing for electrical power interruption, and can get tanks by XX".

Retweeting meant the messages spread rapidly and ordinary Twitter users were quick to lend a hand. "Not only patients but also other general persons provided retweets," says Tamura.

This stream of information combined with drug deliveries to patients by medical staff meant that all of their patients received the treatment they needed.

Via NewScientist

'Hero' Jack in Boxes up for auction

Matt Galley, star of 'Hero at 30,000 ft', is auctioning for charity the first two of the three jack-in-the-boxes left at his doorstep during the filming of the special.

Here's what he says on his eBay page:

Hello my name is Matt Galley,

Last year i had the fantastic opportunity to be part of a Derren Brown special called Hero At 30,000…I was an ordinary guy looking for a break and a bit of a helping hand…

I found an advert to be part of Derren's show and i knew that if i was going to break out of my habits then, as a life long Derren Fan, he would surely be able to help me.

For those of you who saw the show you will know that Derren left cool little Jack-In-The-Box's on my door step to show my progress through the transition from zero to hero

I want to try and help someone in need like Derren did me, so as a result i would like to auction off two of the props so that i can raise some money for SAVE THE CHILDREN who help young children in Africa get clean water, mosquito nets and a education.

So if you are a Derren fan, and want to get your hands on a small piece of his history then please let's raise as much as we can!!

Thanks to you all,

Matt

Here's the link:

http://cgi.eBay.co.uk/270749429279

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TED Open Translation Project – Year 2

Today is the 2-year anniversary of the Open Translation Project! To date, our volunteer translators have created over 18,000 translations of TEDTalks in 81 languages. The above lecture is from the man who invented the World Wide Web,  Tim Burners-Lee. He beautifully demonstrates how about how open source language and information projects are changing the world.

Added to this are Chinese subtitles by Jenny Yang who said "The year open data went worldwide is the most mindset-changing talk I've translated because I believe enabling and allowing people to access open data helps ordinary people see the truth".

More brilliant examples over at TED

NASA captures comet smashing in to the Sun

NASA released this stunning video of a huge comment smashing in to the Sun. Though NASA states that you can't actually see the comet hit the Sun (the impact is blocked out by the red occulting disk that allows the other structures in the Sun's corona to be seen) the ensuing explosion gives a pretty good idea of what's going on.

The Sun's position is indicated by the white circle in the video.

More at the NASA Facebook page

Why did the three-toed sloth cross the road?

The best bit is when they pick Mr Sloth up and he thinks he's Superman.

2011 Optical Illusion Top 10

For those of you who like optical illusions, you'll love the finalists in the 2011 Optical Illusion of the Year (yes it's true).

The above illusion comprises a morphing sequence between two faces. The observer has to fixate a dot superimposed on the morph. When the dot is moving, morphing can hardly be seen. However, when the dot suddenly stops, the morphing appears surprisingly strong. Subtle differences in, e.g., the shape of the eyes, the color of the skin, and even gender characteristics are 'blown-up' perceptually. Apparently, such differences between faces are easily overlooked when following a moving-dot, but are highly salient when our eyes rest at a single point on the morphing faces.

To see the Top 10 Finalists simply prep your eyeballs and click here.

"Amazing" magnetic boy from Croatia

According to the Daily Mail, Ivan Stoiljkovic is much like any other six-year-old boy in his city, apart from the fact he weighs as much as a fully grown man. He's currently in the spotlight for his "amazing magnetic abilities", just watch this video where he demonstrates this incredible ability to stand at awkward angles and balance objects on his rubbery skin whilst covered in lemon juice.

His family claim that he has the ability to magnetically stick up to 25kg of metal to his body including frying pans, spoons and plastic TV remote controls to his body.

They also claim he has unusual strength and even healing powers. So far he's not yet developed the ability to fly and turn water in to wine, but we're sure this may happen as soon as interest wains.

Solid Hydrogen Ice May Explain Interstellar Glow, Say Chemists

Astronomers have never been able to explain the weak glow they can see in interstellar space. Now new evidence suggests that solid hydrogen ice may be responsible.

Astronomers have long known that much of the universe is filled with diffuse hydrogen. In fact, they can see ionised hydrogen gas by the electromagnetic waves it gives off.

But back in the 1960s, some astronomers suggested that the interstellar medium might also be filled with solid hydrogen ice too. Various others later pointed out that this was unlikely because the ice ought to sublimate, even in the extreme cold of interstellar space.

More recently, astronomers have taken a second look at this idea and the pendulum of scientific opinion has begun to swing back in favour of hydrogen ice. That's because chemists have discovered that hydrogen ice is more stable if it contains impurities. The extra ions in the lattice help to stabilise H2 ice.

So if hydrogen ice forms in space in the presence of other impurities, interstellar space could be full of it.

That raises an interesting question. Hydrogen ice is more or less transparent at optical frequencies. So how can we detect it in space?

Today, Ching Yeh Lin at the Australian National University in Canberra and a few buddies make an interesting suggestion. They say that when photons bombard hydrogen ice, they ought to ionise it creating ionised clusters of hydrogen and in particular H6+. This ion cluster does not form in hydrogen gas so its presence is a good marker for hydrogen ice.

The problem is that nobody knows what H6+ looks like–this work hasn't yet been done in the lab. So Ching Yeh Lin and co have calculated from first principles its vibrational transitions. Their conclusion is that H6+ (and its deuterated cousin (HD)3+) ought to produce various emissions in the infrared part of the spectrum.

They then go on to compare their predictions with the emissions that astronomers can see coming from interstellar space.

TechReview

 

Scientists have discovered an entirely new branch of life

NPR.ORG: If you think biologists have a pretty good idea about what lives on the Earth, think again. Scientists say they have just now discovered an entirely new branch on the tree of life. It's made up of mysterious microscopic organisms. They're related to fungus, but they are so different, you could argue that they deserve their very own kingdom, alongside plants and animals.

This comes as a big surprise. Just a few years ago, professor Timothy James and his colleagues sat down and wrote the definitive scientific paper to describe the fungal tree of life.

"We thought we knew what about the major groups that existed," says James, who is curator of fungus at the University of Michigan. "Many groups have excellent drawings of these fungi from the last 150 years."

Many fungi are already familiar. There are mushrooms, yeasts, molds like the one that makes penicillin, plant diseases such as rusts and smuts. Mildew in your shower is one, along with athlete's foot. There are even fungi that infect insects — as well as fungi that live on other fungi.

Biologists figure they've probably only cataloged about 10 percent of all fungal species. But they thought they at least knew all of the major groups.

Thomas Richards, at the Natural History Museum in London, says biologists can mostly only study microscopic fungi if they can grow them in the lab.

"But the reality is most of the diversity of life we can't grow in a laboratory. It exists in the environment," he says. "We know they have at least three stages to their life cycle," Richards says. "One is where they attach to a host, which are photosynthetic algae. Another stage … they form swimming tails so they can presumably find food. And [there's] another stage, which we call the cyst phase, where they go to sleep."

Full Story over at NPR.org

 

Ugly Truth of Space Junk: Orbital Debris Problem to Triple by 2030

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Dealing with the decades of detritus from using outer space — human-made orbital debris — is a global concern, but some experts are now questioning the feasibility of the wide range of "solutions" sketched out to grapple with high-speed space litter.

What may be shaping up is an "abandon in place" posture for certain orbital altitudes — an outlook that flags the messy message resulting from countless bits of orbital refuse.

"The traffic is increasing. We've now got over 50 nations that are participants in the space environment," Shelton said last month during the Space Foundation's 27th National Space Symposium. Given existing space situational awareness capabilities, over 20,000 objects are now tracked.

Via Space.com