Derren Brown's Blog, page 85

Man scrawls world's biggest message with GPS 'pen'

"One man drove 12,238 miles across 30 states to scrawl a message that can only be viewed using Google Earth. His big shoutout: "Read Ayn Rand."

Nick Newcomen did a road trip over 30 days that covered stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. First, he identified on a map the route he would need to drive to spell out the message. He put a GPS device in his car to trace the route he would follow. Then, he hit the road.

"The main reason I did it is because I am an Ayn Rand fan," he says...

New gel could speed wound healing

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"For three years, Connie McPherson had debilitating leg ulcers that were so painful she sometimes couldn't sleep. Despite repeated surgery, antibiotics, steroids and other treatments, nothing helped. Then last year, she took part in a trial for a new gel aimed at chronic wounds. "It was the answer to my prayers," said McPherson, 58, a real estate agent in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Within weeks, McPherson said the ulcer treated was completely healed. "I tried everything possible and this is the only...

Huge Solar Storm Triggers Unusual Auroras

"Auroras create green curtains of light August 4 over the Rupert River in Waskaganish (see map), a Cree Nation community in Quebec, Canada.

Last week's northern lights—which lasted a few days—were products of a large burst of plasma, or charged gas, from the sun known as a coronal mass ejection. A NASA orbiter called the Solar Dynamics Observatory saw last Sunday's eruption, which was aimed directly at Earth and sparked predictions of a shimmering sky show.

Now it seems aurora fans may be in...

Trap Lightning in a Block

"To create beautiful electrical-charge patterns like this, you could use a giant particle accelerator. But shag carpeting will also do just fine. Watch how Lichtenberg figures are made in our amazing video. A Lichtenberg figure being created by a tap from a nail. In just a few hundred nanoseconds, electrons trapped in plastic exit suddenly as a bright, branching spark."

Read more at PopSci (Thanks DG)

How an ancient printer can spill your most intimate secrets

"Researchers have devised a novel way to recover confidential messages processed in doctors' offices and elsewhere by analyzing the sounds made when documents are reproduced on dot-matrix printers.

This so-called side-channel attack works by recording the "acoustic emanations" of a confidential document being printed, and then processing it with software that translates the sounds into words. The method recovers as much as 95 per cent of the printed words when an attacker has contextual...

Invisibility Cloak Made From Silk

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"For thousands of years people have worn shimmering silk to stand out in a crowd. Within the next few years people could wear silk to become invisible in a a crowd.

For the first time ever, scientists have created an invisibility cloak made from silk, and coated in gold.

The new metamaterial, as invisibility cloaks and their kin are technically called, only works on relatively long terahertz waves (a region of the electromagnetic spectrum between radio and infrared light), but the Boston-area s...

The Invisible Man

Liu Bolin is an artist known in his native China as "the invisible man" for his series of photographs where he paints himself to blend into the background. These are real photographs, not digital manipulations!

(He's just in front of the closest tyre!)

See more at Woody's Place (Thanks Katherine)

Happy people are 'more creative'

Outgoing people in a good mood are significantly more creative than people who keep themselves to themselves, according to a new study. University of Portsmouth psychologist Lorenzo Stafford discovered that extrovert people in a good mood are the most creative thinkers because they have more of the "happiness chemical" dopamine. Introverts are no more creative whether they are in a good or neutral mood, the study found.

Dr Stafford said his results showed personality and mood play a vital...

Brain chip break-through

"Dr. Naweed Syed has made the brain come to life on a microchip.

He and a University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine team of eight, in collaboration with the National Research Council, have developed a silicon chip that monitors the subtle signals of living individual brain cells and keeps them alive for up at least two days.

Only snail brain cells have been used, but in a couple months, Syed will target cells from epileptic patients. "We want to get the seizure-causing tissue removed in...

Brainless slime mould makes decisions like humans

"A couple arrive at a fancy restaurant and they're offered the wine list. This establishment only has two bottles on offer, one costing £5 and the other costing £25. The second bottle seems too expensive and the diners select the cheaper one. The next week, they return. Now, there's a third bottle on the list but it's a vintage, priced at a staggering £1,000. Suddenly, the £25 bottle doesn't seem all that expensive, and this time, the diners choose it instead.

Businesses use this tactic all...