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Innovation for Easy Bone Marrow Harvest
A TED talk focusing on new ways of extracting bone marrow from the human body:
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The TSA’s Totalitarian Reign
A woman recently documented her experience with a few TSA officers in which she was reprimanded and not allowed on her flight due to her attitude. Apparently, she drank her water instead of letting the TSA test it, which you would think would validate that the water was A-ok and not a deadly chemical or bomb additive, but no.
I know not every person that works for the TSA is an uneducated circus clown on a power trip, but let’s be honest, most are. I have heard of and experienced some downright silly behavior by the TSA, but this one takes the whole bakery.
She was kicked off her flight. When she asks the TSA officer if they think she is actually a threat they say “no, no, but your attitude…”
She asks, “so let me get this straight, this is retaliatory for my attitude, this is not making the airways safer, this is retaliatory,” to which the TSA officer responds, “pretty much yes.”
Here’s the kicker. When she asks, “is this legal?” The TSA clown confidently responds “yes it is.” And there you have it. The very definition of a power trip superfluous to the safety of people these officials are supposed to be serving and protecting. Sound familiar?
I guess it could be worse. Did you hear about the elderly woman who was forced to take her adult diaper off to complete a body search? No, that’s not the set up of a punch line.
The woman notes:
“The TSA detains people or removes them from flights every day for non-security, punitive reasons. Passengers have missed their flights because they didn’t want their breast milk screened in the x-ray detector, because they were carrying a cupcake, because they were wearing a shirt with a satirical logo, because they had a purse with a gun emblem on it, the list goes on. When this happens, passengers have no recourse. Complaints to the TSA result in the TSA denying there was any wrong doing, and the offending officer goes unpunished. Passengers should have rights, and TSA agents should know that there are consequences for intimidation and bullying.”
Here are a few links she provides if you’re interested in giving the TSA a little taste of their own behavior.
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Meet the Needle Beam; No More Signal Loss
phonerpt.com Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created an entirely new way to send light beams called the ‘needle beam.’ They are able to send a beam of light at an unprecedented distance without any loss of information.
While all waves naturally spread, the needle beam, or cosine-Gauss plasmon beam, propagates in incredibly tight confinement along a metallic surface. The propagation remains so confined that the beam has redefined what researchers believed was mathematically possible. The discovery will lead to ultra fast communication with little to no loss of signal.
First quantum teleportation, and now the needle beam. The future just keeps getting faster every day.
Good bye loading-hour-glass… farewell waiting!
Sources
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: Needle beam could eliminate signal loss in on-chip optics
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Meet the Needle Beam, No More Signal Loss
Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created an entirely new way to send light beams called the ‘needle beam.‘ They are able to send a beam of light at an unprecedented distance without any loss of information.
While all waves naturally spread, the needle beam, or cosine-Gauss plasmon beam, propagates in incredibly tight confinement along a metallic surface. The propagation remains so confined that the beam has redefined what researchers believed was mathematically possible. The discovery will lead to ultra fast communication with little to no loss of signal.
First quantum teleportation, and now the needle beam. The future just keeps getting faster every day.
Good bye loading-hour-glass… farewell waiting!
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Portugal Decriminalizes All Drugs; 10 Years Later the Results are Mind Blowing
10 years ago Portugal decriminalized every single known drug in an attempt to alter the crime rate and addiction rate in the country. Many analyzers doubted the controversial move and even bashed Portugal for being foolish. Ten years later, the results speak for themselves.
First of all it’s still illegal to distribute and traffic drugs, but possession and use is no longer a criminal offense. Each user is judged on an individual basis by legal experts, psychologists, and social workers. Method of treatment is decided in these courts, “where addicts and drug use is treated as a public health service rather than referring it to the justice system (like the U.S.)”
The results:
- A 50% nationwide reduction in addicts
- One of the lowest drug usage rates for a country in the entire EU
- More than 50% reduction in STD’s and overdoses (“which experts believe is the result of the government offering treatment with no threat of legal ramifications to addicts”)
This isn’t new by the way. Cannabis and other schedule substances in America have been decriminalized in The Netherlands for years, and major differences in addiction rate and crime can be observed, even after adjusting for population and other variables.
Enough is enough. Over 50% of the inmates in American prisons are there for non-violent drug use. Many times they were completely functioning, raising families, working a steady job, paying taxes, and ingesting their drug of choice reasonably and responsibly. That’s millions of people in prison who are able and willing to be content, non-violent, productive members of the society that demonizes them and destroys their family and themselves forever.
Sensibility and rationality is far more sensible and rational.
Update:
For more information including graphs, statistics and in depth reading concerning Portugal’s drug policy: clicky and clicky.
For extensive information regarding other nations with progressive and effective drug policies: clicker and click.
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Alcohol Discovered Today: Would it Still be Legal?
The wonderful world of alcohol. http://www.failhero.com That is the question Professor David Nutt from Cambridge University has asked his country. Alcohol is undoubtedly the most widespread, destructive drug on the planet, and yet, it is socially accepted and even encouraged in nearly every culture.
Professor Nutt begins by pointing out that in many people’s minds alcohol is not even a drug. When people ingest it they get drunk, yet, when they ingest any other ‘drug’ they get high. Society has classified alcohol as something completely different than any other mind altering substance. It is harmless, and only a problem for a remote minority of the world.
This is simply not true.
Professor Nutt points out the alarming annual statistics in the UK alone:
- 40,000 deaths, including 350 just from acute poisoning and 8,000 from cirrhosis of the liver. More than a million hospital admissions in 2007/8 (including 13,000 under-18s), costing the NHS £2.7 billion.
- 7,000 road traffic accidents, including 500 deaths.
- 1.2 million violent incidents and 500,000 crimes, costing the police £7 billion. In addition:
- 40% of domestic violence cases involve alcohol, as well as 50% of child protection cases.
- 3.5 million adults in the UK are addicted, and up to 700,000 children live with a parent with a drink problem. 6,000 children a year are born with fetal alcohol syndrome each year.
- Globally, the main burden of disease in 15- to 24-year-old males is due to alcohol, outweighing unsafe sex, illicit drug use, and physical accidents combined.
- The total economic cost has been calculated as £30 billion a year – though some calculations estimate it may be as high as £55 billion.
Does this sound like a substance society should be lining the super market shelves with? Professor Nutt explains that the alcohol industry is much to blame for the double think we practice regarding the substance we love so much. In rebuttal to negative rhetoricl, the industries always find a way to defend themselves.
The European Centre for Monitoring Alcohol Marketing recently published a report called the Seven Key Messages of the Alcohol Industry,
and they are as follows:
- Consuming alcohol is normal, common, healthy and very responsible.
- The damage done by alcohol is caused by a small group of deviants who cannot handle it.
- Normal adult non-drinkers do not, in fact, exist.
- Ignore the fact that alcohol is harmful and addictive chemical substance (ethanol) for the body.
- Marketing is not harmful. It is simply intended to assist the consumer in selecting a certain product or brand.
- Education about responsible use is the best method to protect society from drinking problems.
With a copious amount of information, Professor Nutt explains the fallacies of each of these statements in detail. Alcohol is undoubtedly dangerous for those who drink and those that choose not to.
It’s time to rethink all substances. We need a paradigm shift in the way we view drugs and medicine. A shift that involves science and experience, rather than profits and hysteria.
Sources:
AlterNet: If Alcohol Were Discovered Today, Would it be Legal?
Professor Nutt: Drugs – without the hot air
Huffington Post: Finally, Drug Education Gets Real: Drugs – Without the Hot Air
The Economist: Reefer Madness Plain Speaking on a Highly Coloured Issue
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If Alcohol Were Discovered Today Would it Be Legal?
That is the question Professor David Nutt from Cambridge University has asked his country. Alcohol is undoubtedly the most widespread, destructive drug on the planet, and yet, it is socially accepted and even encouraged in nearly every culture.
Professor Nutt begins by pointing out that in many people’s minds alcohol is not even a drug. When people ingest alcohol they get drunk, yet, when they ingest any other ‘drug’ they get high. Society has classified alcohol as something completely different than any other mind altering substance. It is harmless, and only a problem for a remote minority of the world.
This is simply not true.
Professor Nutt points out the annual statistics concerning Alcohol in the UK alone:
- 40,000 deaths, including 350 just from acute alcohol poisoning and 8,000 from cirrhosis of the liver. More than a million hospital admissions in 2007/8 (including 13,000 under-18s), costing the NHS £2.7 billion.
- 7,000 road traffic accidents, including 500 deaths.
- 1.2 million violent incidents and 500,000 crimes, costing the police £7 billion. In addition:
- 40% of domestic violence cases involve alcohol, as well as 50% of child protection cases.
- 3.5 million adults in the UK are addicted, and up to 700,000 children live with a parent with a drink problem. 6,000 children a year are born with fetal alcohol syndrome each year.
- Globally, the main burden of disease in 15- to 24-year-old males is due to alcohol, outweighing unsafe sex, illicit drug use, and physical accidents combined.
- The total economic cost has been calculated as £30 billion a year – though some calculations estimate it may be as high as £55 billion.
Does this sound like a substance society should be lining the super market shelves with? Professor Nutt explains that the alcohol industry is much to blame for the double think we practice regarding alcohol.
In rebuttal to negative rhetoric regarding alcohol, the industries always find a way to defend themselves. The major points of argument/propoganda are:
- Consuming alcohol is normal, common, healthy and very responsible.
- The damage done by alcohol is caused by a small group of deviants who cannot handle alcohol.
- Normal adult non-drinkers do not, in fact, exist.
- Ignore the fact that alcohol is a harmful and addictive chemical substance (ethanol) for the body.
- Alcohol problems can only be solved when all parties work together.
- Alcohol marketing is not harmful. It is simply intended to assist the consumer in selecting a certain product or brand.
- Education about responsible use is the best method to protect society from alcohol problems.
With a copious amount of information, Professor Nutt explains the fallacies of each of these statements in detail. Alcohol is undoubtedly dangerous for those who drink and those that choose not to.
It’s time to rethink all substances. We need a paradigm shift in the way we view drugs and medicine. A shift that involves science and experience, rather than profits and hysteria.
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Water Droplets Now Used as Computers
Researchers from Aalto University have discovered that water droplets can be used as tiny bits of digital information. When water droplets are placed on highly water repellent surfaces and collide, they bounce off of each other like billiard balls. These collisions and bounces can be controlled and turned into computational logic.
Using superhydrophobic surfaces with tracks for guiding the droplets, the foundation for computing is created with the simple addition of water. Researchers are claiming this new form of computation will pave a way for non-electronic computers in the near future.
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Substitutional Reality Helmet
Researchers have created what they are calling an inception helmet. The helmet was developed to switch seamlessly between live feed and recorded footage in order to create a helmet able to realistically simulate and project reality.
The researchers found that many test subjects were unable to tell the difference between the live footage and the recorded scenes, leading to a breakthrough in cognitive research and therapeutic methods.
The researchers are focusing on “psychiatric applications, but the system could also be a powerful tool to investigate how our conscious experiences are constituted in daily natural scenes.” They also want to use the substitution reality technology to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias by repeatedly exposing patients to traumatic episodes in immersive devices. The SR system provides the conviction of being in the ‘real’ world, which is absent in current VR technologies.”
Get your tokens ready, reality is about to add another layer to the veil.
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Federal Judge Urges Legalization of Marijuana
Richard A. Posner, a widely respected federal judge, legal conservative, and the most cited judge in America has called for the legalization of Marijuana and changes to other drug laws. Graduating as valedictorian from Yale, Posner has been called a genius by his contemporaries and even has classes devoted to his rulings.
Judge Posner was given a round of applause when he said that “I don’t think we should have a fraction of the drug laws that we have. I think it’s really absurd to be criminalizing possession or use or distribution of marijuana, I can’t see any difference between that and cigarettes.”
He continued to point out the senselessness of using punishment over treatment. He commented that “using the criminal law as the primary means of dealing with a problem of addiction, of misuse, of ingesting dangerous drugs — I don’t think that’s sensible at all.”
He also reminded the courts that legalizing marijuana and other drugs “would save federal, state and local governments $41.3 billion per year.”
He believes the drug laws are a waste of legal minds and a waste of, at the very least, moderately productive people’s lives.
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Wonder about your world…
Take the plunge down the rabbit hole of insanity and wonder in this fast-paced, nonstop psychological thriller that will leave you questioning the very nature of reality and beyond. Part thriller, part romance, part existential horror, A Dream of Waking Life delves into lucid dreaming, psychedelics, existential ontology, video games, the nature of love, the nature of reality, and more.
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Wondergressive 