When drunk birds sing
“Does beer make you shlur your wordsh?” asks the New Scientist. “You’re not alone: Drunk zebra finches sing songs that are blurrier and more disorganized than those of their sober counterparts. What’s more, binge drinking may permanently impair juvenile finches’ ability to learn new songs – which could have implications for our understanding of the effects of heavy drinking on adolescents.”
Art thieves? Simpletons
“Real-life art heists aren’t like the movies. … Heist movies always focus on how,” writes Edward Dolnick in The Guardian. “The thieves scan the layout of security cameras, oil their rifles, synchronize their watches. How is the wrong question. The real question is why. Why in the world would thieves steal paintings too famous to sell? Plainly, they do. A Museum of the Missing, an imaginary museum that consisted entirely of stolen paintings, would be one of the best and biggest in the world. … So what are the thieves thinking? Less than you would imagine.” Drawing their picture of the art world from the movies, they believe that an unscrupulous billionaire, “some modern-day Dr. No, sits contemplating the blank spot above his fireplace that would make the perfect setting for a Picasso. … But there are no such collectors, though the thieves fervently believe in them.”
The coming of the phablets
“[U.S. research says] there’s an ongoing trend to bigger screen sizes on desktop monitors, televisions, smartphones, GPS devices and even portable media players,” reports United Press International. “A study by NPD DisplaySearch shows the diagonal measurement of displays on almost all electronic devices is increasing. … The increase is especially prevalent in smartphones, which will see a whopping 38 per cent increase in screen size by 2013 as compared to 2010, NPD DisplaySearch said. Much of that is represented by so-called ‘phablets,’ smartphones with five-inch screens almost approaching tablet computer in display real estate.”
Virtual supermarkets
“China’s biggest online retailer, Yihaodian, is to open 1,000 virtual supermarkets that contain no real food but allow shoppers to see pictures of items available to buy using their smartphone,” says The Daily Telegraph. “The supermarkets, which will all be built in China, will just be blank spaces, but a shopper will be able to see items using augmented reality technology on a mobile phone, according to Tech In Asia. The new supermarkets will be around 1,200 square metres and will (virtually) stock 1,000 items. It is thought the stores are designed to avoid the tedium of spending hours on a website doing the weekly shop.”
Smart flesh
“A team of Harvard and MIT researchers has created the first three-dimensional piece of artificial tissue that’s wired with electronics,” reports The Boston Globe. “The breakthrough brings promise that one day such wired tissue could act as sensors, detecting looming problems deep inside the body and either fixing them directly or sending a message that help is needed. It could also be used to make ‘smart’ prosthetics or replacement body parts. That’s still far in the future, of course. So far, the researchers have shown that their tiny electronic circuits can detect changes in pH balance in an artificial blood vessel, and measure real-time electrical activity and the effect of drugs on a patch of heart cells. The scientists, who published their work in August in the journal Nature Materials, call their creation a ‘nanoelectronic scaffold,’ because the wiring is so small that it can slip undetected between cells, and is integrated into a scaffold used to grow artificial tissue.”
Thought du jour
“There are two kinds of light – the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures.”
James Thurber, American author (1894-1961)
