Derren Brown's Blog, page 46

South Carolina scientist works to grow meat in lab

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) – In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade to grow meat.

A developmental biologist and tissue engineer, Dr. Mironov, 56, is one of only a few scientists worldwide involved in bioengineering "cultured" meat.

It's a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available for growing meat the old-fashioned way … on the hoof.

Growth of "in-vitro" or cultured meat is also under way in the Netherlands, Mironov told Reuters in an interview, but in the United States, it is science in search of funding and demand.

The new National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, won't fund it, the National Institutes of Health won't fund it, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration funded it only briefly, Mironov said.

"It's classic disruptive technology," Mironov said. "Bringing any new technology on the market, average, costs $1 billion. We don't even have $1 million."

Director of the Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Center in the Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology at the medical university, Mironov now primarily conducts research on tissue engineering, or growing, of human organs.

"There's a yuck factor when people find out meat is grown in a lab. They don't like to associate technology with food," said Nicholas Genovese, 32, a visiting scholar in cancer cell biology working under a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals three-year grant to run Dr. Mironov's meat-growing lab.

Yahoo

China Sets Record For World's Longest Sea Bridge at 26 Miles Long

The world's largest bridge stretches more than 26 miles long and is five miles longer than the Dover-Calais crossing and almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. This bridge is also 174 times longer than London's Tower Bridge over the Thames River.

At the cost of $8.5 billion, the bridge is specifically designed to withstand an earthquake of 8 magnitude and tropical typhoons with winds up to 125mph. Initiated back in 2006 with two separate groups of workers building the different ends of the structure, the six-lane expressway stretches from Qingdao to Huangdao and the Pearl River Delta city of Zhuhai.

Slated to carry over 30,000 cars per day when it opens to commuters at the end of 2011, it is expected that this bridge will dramatically reduce travel distance along the route between Qingdao and Huangdao by 30km (more than 18 miles) and shave about 20 minutes off the total travel time.

Although everything went well when construction was completed in December, there were still concerns.

"The computer models and calculations are all very well but you can't really relax until the two sides are bolted together. Even a few centimeters off would have been a disaster," commented one engineer.

Fame however, is fleeting, and this bridge will only remain the world's largest for a few years when it is expected that its length will be bested by still another Chinese bridge that will link southern Guangdong province with Hong Kong and Macau. This one is set for completion in 2016 and will span nearly 50 km (30 miles).

Telegraph

The Big Questions: Is there Life After Death?

Herp derp.

The President of Malawi wants to make farting illegal

Breaking wind is set to be made a crime in an African country. The government of Malawi plan to punish persistent offenders 'who foul the air' in a bid to 'mould responsible and disciplined citizens.'

But locals fear that pinning responsibility on the crime will be difficult – and may lead to miscarriages of justice as 'criminals' attempt to blame others for their offence. One Malawian told the website Africanews.com: 'My goodness. What happens in a public place where a group is gathered. Do they lock up half a minibus?

'And how about at meetings where it is difficult to pinpoint 'culprits'?

'Children will openly deny having passed bad air and point at an elder. Culturally, this is very embarrassing,' she said.

Another said: 'We have serious issues affecting Malawians today. I do not know how fouling the air should take priority over regulating Chinese investments which do not employ locals, serious graft amongst legislators, especially those in the ruling party, and many more.'

Via BusinessMail

Research Finds that Atheists are Most Hated and Distrusted Minority

"Intolerance is a bitter beast. There are many groups in America that are subject to discrimination and prejudice, but none are more hated than atheists. Research conducted a couple years ago at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that atheists are more distrusted than muslims or homosexuals in the US.

Austin Cline from about.com writes, "Every single study that has ever looked at the issue has revealed massive amounts of bigotry and prejudice against atheists in America. The most recent data shows that atheists are more distrusted and despised than any other minority and that an atheist is the least likely person that Americans would vote for in a presidential election. It's not just that atheists are hated, though, but also that atheists seem to represent everything about modernity which Americans dislike or fear.

The most recent study was conducted by the University of Minnesota, which found that atheists ranked lower than "Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in 'sharing their vision of American society.' Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry." The results from two of the most important questions"

This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society…

Atheist: 39.6%

Muslims: 26.3%

Homosexuals: 22.6%

Hispanics: 20%

Conservative Christians: 13.5%

Recent Immigrants: 12.5%

Jews: 7.6%

I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group….

Atheist: 47.6%

Muslim: 33.5%

African-American 27.2%

Asian-Americans: 18.5%

Hispanics: 18.5%

Jews: 11.8%

Conservative Christians: 6.9%

Whites: 2.3%"

Read more at News Junkie Post

Bogus "dowsing rod bomb detector" still being sold from the UK

Jim McCormick is the man behind the ADE-651. He's appeared on TV claiming his device will detect anything from elephants to drugs to TNT with his magical dousing rods. On inspection the devices contain no actual working parts. But this didn't stop the devices raking in an incredible $85 Million.

The device sold all over the world is very prominent at checkpoints in Baghdad. Thousands of the "detectors" were bought for an astonishing $40,000 each from Jim McCormick's Somerset company ATSC.

Many experts were quick to denounce these devices stating that they are not just completely bogus but the practice of selling them is completely immoral.

James Randi came forward and asked ATSC to take part in his JREF Million Dollar challenge. When he refused Randi notified the authorities and Jim McCormick was arrested on fraud charges. (See video from jan 2010 above).

However in a recent investigation has shown that these devices are still being sold around the world for extortionate amounts. The government's Department of Trade and Industry, which has since been superseded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, helped two of the manufacturers sell their products in Mexico and the Philippines.

Just three months after the ban on sales to Iraq and Afghanistan, a product called the HEDD1, consisting of a radio aerial on a handle made in Bulgaria, was displayed at a security exhibition at Olympia in London.

The company selling the devices, Unival, claimed that while all the other products which looked like it were a "massive scam", theirs was different.

The HEDD1 was marketed by a retired British Army colonel, John Wyatt, who told prospective buyers that it had "proved extremely successful in several foreign countries", including in "double blind" tests.

In reality the maker of HEDD1, Yuri Markov, had been charged in the United States in 2008 for fraudulently claiming that the previous version of his so-called bomb detector could detect explosives.

The US Navy had subjected it to a double-blind test and found it "does not work".

More information on this at BBC

All-Nighters Make Bodies Hoard Calories

"Staying up all night clearly taxes the body, but scientists have only now added up the exact bill. By measuring the actual number of calories the body expends to fuel an all-nighter versus a good night's sleep, researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder calculate that a full night of sleep helps the body conserve as much energy as is in a glass of warm milk.

Missing a night of sleep forces the body to burn about an extra 161 calories than it would have during eight hours of sleep (not counting what's used in moving around while awake), but it's no weight-loss miracle: The body tries to make up for the deficit by saving more energy than usual the next day and night, researchers report in the January Journal of Physiology.

The measurements, the first to put precise numbers on how much total energy people use in a 24-hour period while asleep, awake or recovering from a night of sleep deprivation, help bolster a theory that an important function of sleep is to save energy (SN: 10/24/09, p. 16).

To measure how much energy people use during sleep in a more rigorous way than has been done before, Kenneth Wright, a physiologist at the University of Colorado, and his colleagues studied seven people. Each of the healthy young volunteers lived inside a sealed room for three days. The volunteers were on bed rest the entire time and ate the same amount of calories at the same time each day. The researchers continually monitored the subject's brain waves and how much oxygen and carbon dioxide the person breathed in and out. From there, the team could calculate each person's energy use during each stage of sleep and waking.

"This is a Herculean effort," neurobiologist Paul Shaw of Washington University in St. Louis says of the study. "This will be the gold standard going forward.""

Read more at Wired (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)

To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test

"Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn, and it works better than a number of other studying techniques.

The research, published online Thursday in the journal Science, found that students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods.

One of those methods — repeatedly studying the material — is familiar to legions of students who cram before exams. The other — having students draw detailed diagrams documenting what they are learning — is prized by many teachers because it forces students to make connections among facts.

These other methods not only are popular, the researchers reported; they also seem to give students the illusion that they know material better than they do.

In the experiments, the students were asked to predict how much they would remember a week after using one of the methods to learn the material. Those who took the test after reading the passage predicted they would remember less than the other students predicted — but the results were just the opposite.

"I think that learning is all about retrieving, all about reconstructing our knowledge," said the lead author, Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University. "I think that we're tapping into something fundamental about how the mind works when we talk about retrieval.""

Read more at NY TImes (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)

WTF: Woman sues P-Diddy for $900 Billion for "knocking down the world trade centre"

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According to Radar Online P-Diddy is being sued for rather a large sum of money. Valerie Joyce Wilson Turks is seeking a restraining order against the star, real name Sean Combs, accusing him of a whole plethora of wrong doings.

According to Turks, the 41-year-old, along with his ex-girlfriend Kim Porterand LAPD brutality victim Rodney King, is responsible for the collapse of the World Trade Centre amongst other outrageous alleged atrocities.

Valerie is requesting a cool $900 billion dollars in child support, and $100 billion dollars for "loss of income."

Full story at Radar

Commerce gets social: How social networks are driving what you buy

"Ryan Romanchuk recently bought some Scott Naturals toilet paper, refills for his Reach dental flosser, Strunk's The Elements of Style (fourth edition) — plus a Glock 23 semi-automatic pistol. In fact, every time the 25-year-old software engineer spends money — on The Hurt Locker at iTunes, or a Wolf Trap gold-mining sluice — he lets the world know on Blippy, a website that automatically and very publicly shares all of its members' credit card transactions in real time. Launched last January and backed by $13 million from investors including Twitter's Evan Williams and Sequoia Capital, Blippy also publishes transactions on your eBay, Amazon and other linked accounts. And because the site encourages friends to comment on items shared, it says users can "watch… purchases come to life".

For Romanchuk, based in Palo Alto, California, such sharing is a means of self-expression that earns social capital. "I share because I get validation through my peers," he says. "It's the most honest way I can express my interests and values. It's a great feeling to find complete strangers who have watched the same movie or read the same book, and it's rewarding when others reach out about the things I reviewed that I care deeply about. It also influences my purchases: if one of my friends watches a movie, I almost always add it to my Netflix queue."

Romanchuk doesn't mind that, last April, Blippy let Google expose some users' credit card numbers: he is hooked. Indeed, he has now got a job there writing code. "That initial fear [of sharing] is what really gets me excited about this space," he says. "You quickly realise that obsessively reviewing the things you buy is, well, a lot less scary than you thought, and you have fun in the process.""

Read more at Wired (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)