Bionic Man
When Alex J Murphy (Robocop) defied death and came back as a killing machine, possibility of such advancements in science escaped an ordinary man’s imagination.
Taisia Sidorova, Develops Artistic Talent After Losing Half Of Brain.
There is something called God’s gift. Some people are blessed with an inherent ability to learn things more quickly than others; some are showered upon the gift of intelligence while some excel in sports or other activities. We normally call such people “gifted”.
Man Feed His Dog Using Twitter.
We all know "Necessity is the mother of invention", well it is proved by 30 years old IT consultant name Nat Morris, who spends a lot of time working away from home and isn’t always able to feed four-year-old Toby by hand, in a result he has rigged up an extraordinary way to feed his border terrier Toby a ‘tweet treat’ by sending him a Twitter message to @FeedToby.
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Monday, 13 May 2013
06:20
Postimet
Low dose aspirin may ward off cognitive decline in elderly women with a high risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke, conclude researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden who write about their five-year study in a paper published 3 October in the online journal BMJ Open.
In their introduction, corresponding author Anne Börjesson-Hanson and colleagues explain that many studies have looked at the effect of non-steroidal anti- inflammatory drugs (NSAID) on cognitive decline and dementia, but few have looked at the effect of aspirin on these conditions.
Yet, while researchers have proposed that inflammation might be important in the development of cognitive decline and cardiovascular diseases, and low dose aspirin is widely prescribed to prevent cardiovascular disease, no study has yet examined the effect of aspirin on cognitive function in people at high cardiovascular risk.
For their study, the researchers followed 681 women aged between 70 and 92 for five years. 129 of the women were already taking aspirin at daily doses ranging from 75 and 160 mg, and after undergoing baseline assessments, 601 were classed as having high cardiovascular risk.
Over the study period, the participants underwent more tests of cognitive and thinking skills, including one commonly used in the UK to diagnose dementia, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE).
The results showed that while the MMSE scores for the overall group fell over the five years of the study, it fell less for those women taking aspirin.
But although other tests of memory and thinking showed a similar pattern, those results were not statistically significant.
By the end of the study, 41 of the participants developed dementia, but the rate was no different between those on aspirin and those who weren’t.
In discussing the possible limitations of their study, the authors say they can’t rule out that people with incipient cognitive decline might be less likely to take aspirin anyway.
They conclude that low-dose aspirin treatment “may have a neuroprotective effect in elderly women at high cardiovascular risk”.
Simon Ridley, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, says in a press release:
“The results provide interesting insight into the importance of cardiovascular health on cognition, but we would urge people not to self-medicate with aspirin to try to stave off dementia.”
He points out the study found no benefit from aspirin on overall dementia rates, and that previous trials investigating potential benefits of drugs like aspirin for dementia have been negative.
“We know that keeping our heart healthy through regular exercise, a healthy diet, not smoking and keeping our blood pressure and cholesterol in check, can help to reduce the risk of dementia,” says Ridley, adding that research into risk factors for cognitive decline must nevertheless become a top priority in the UK because of its increasingly aging population.
Many people take a low dose of aspirin every day to lower their risk of a further heart attack or stroke, or if they have a high risk of either. However, while some might say this is a good idea, there are others who think perhaps not. If you are considering taking it, you should discuss it with your doctor first. For more information on this debate, you may wish to see our earlier article on Daily Aspirin – More Benefit Than Risk?.
06:16
Postimet
People who want to know how to get rid of acne should first seek for its causes. The market can give you various products that can treat your skin condition. Even some treatments are readily available at your home. However, learning the step by step process on how to get rid of acne will benefit you.
There are only two options on how to get rid of acne: natural method and product-based method. Most people who take their step on the path of getting rid of acne use the product-based method because it is said that it provides faster cure. But what people don’t know that it may cause harm to their skin. In fact, there are products that were banned because of this issue while others are strictly regulated because of some reasons. Therefore, you should adapt how to get rid of acne naturally before it’s too late.
Easy Ways to Get Rid of Acnes
The first thing that would pop into someone’s mind on how to get rid of acne is the expenses. Not all people realize that the best answer on how to get rid of acne is to consider changes in their lifestyle. Start the change like keeping your pillowcase neat and away from germs. Facing your wash can also do the job on how to get rid of acne, but it’s not enough. Here are a few easy ways on how to get rid of acne:
Swap your pillowcase more often. Depending on the severity of acne, you need to change your routing when swapping your pillowcase so that you will be successful on how to get rid of acne.
Another way on how to get rid of acne is to quit picking. If you haven’t washed your hands, do not touch your face because it’ll just make the condition worse. Do your homework instead or keep your hands busy.
Exercising regularly can also help you to on how to get rid of acne. You don’t to take a gym class or avail fitness programs. Do exercises in your home for about 30 minutes a day. Exercise at least three times a week.
Having a daily skin-care routine is also another way on how to get rid of acne in your face or body. Wash your face regularly with the right facial cleanser.
What Causes Acne
There are a lot of factors that causes acne. It commonly forms due to the presence of abnormal cells in the hair follicles of the skin. Hormonal imbalance, poor dietary habits, too much pressure or stress, and insufficient vitamin intake are the factors which primarily causes acne to occur.
Hormonal Imbalance- it is known as the main cause of rosacea and acne. It typically happens during the period of puberty, a stage in which the body begins to generate androgens. If the dead cells are mixed with the oil-like substance called sebum, the pores may be infected by bacteria which can cause inflammation of the skin.
Poor Dietary Habits- foods also have contribution in the acne’s development. Processed foods can lead to hormonal imbalance which results to acne. So, include healthy foods in your eating habits to get good results on how to get rid of acne.
Too much pressure or stress- studies also show that acne’s formation was due to stress and pressure. Stress can cause adrenaline glands to generate more than its normal level. This also cause hormonal imbalance which lead to acne formation on the skin.
Insufficient Vitamin Intake- if the body system lacks vitamins, one’s immune system can also weaken too which makes people prone to some diseases. Formation of acne may occur if you lack zinc, Vitamins E, B, A, and C.
Natural Remedies for Body Acne
Acne also occurs on surfaces of the body and many individuals have problem with it especially body acne is prone to sweats. There are natural remedies on how to get rid of acne in your body. Using aloe Vera is a great way on how to get rid of acne naturally. This helps you cure clogged pores and reduce irritating skin. Clay masks are also great choice on how to get rid of acne in the body.
Conclusion
Whatever type of acne you have in your body or face, it is still important to know how to get rid of acne. Make sure that you know what causes acne before you applied anything on your face. If you don’t where to start on how to get rid of acne, don’t figure it out by yourself because it may just worsen the situation. You may ask your friend who also have past experiences on acnes. Consulting a dermatologist could be your best option if you are willing to pay. But, if you are not capable enough to carry the expenses, go natural on how to get rid of acne because this can help you eliminate acnes in a safer way.
06:14
Postimet
Working on weight loss? Then you probably want results — fast.
Let me save you some time: skip the fad diets. Their results don’t last. And you have healthier options you can start on — today!
You can safely lose 3 or more pounds a week at home with a healthy diet and lots of exercise, says weight loss counselor Katherine Tallmadge, RD.
How to Lose Weight Fast
If you burn 500 more calories than you eat every day for a week, you should lose about 1-2 pounds.
If you want to lose weight faster, you’ll need to eat less and exercise more.
For instance, if you take in 1,050 to 1,200 calories a day, and exercise for one hour per day, you could lose 3-5 pounds in the first week, or more if you weigh more than 250 pounds. It’s very important not to cut calories any further — that’s dangerous.
Limiting salt and starches may also mean losing more weight at first — but that’s mostly fluids, not fat.
“When you reduce sodium and cut starches, you reduce fluids and fluid retention, which can result in up to 5 pounds of fluid loss when you get started,” says Michael Dansinger, MD, of NBC’s The Biggest Loser show.
Diets for Fast Weight Loss
Dansinger recommends eating a diet that minimizes starches, added sugars, and animal fat from meat and dairy foods. For rapid weight loss, he recommends focusing on fruits, veggies, egg whites, soy products, skinless poultry breasts, fish, shellfish, nonfat dairy foods, and 95% lean meat.
Here are more tips from Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, author of The Flexitarian Diet :
Eat vegetables to help you feel full.
Drink plenty of water.
Get tempting foods out of your home.
Stay busy — you don’t want to eat just because you’re bored.
Eat only from a plate, while seated at a table. No grazing in front of the ‘fridge.
Don’t skip meals.
Keeping a food journal — writing down everything you eat — can also help you stay on track.
“Even if you write it down on a napkin and end up throwing it away, the act of writing it down is about being accountable to yourself and is a very effective tool for weight loss,” says Bonnie Taub Dix, MA, RD, author of Read It Before You Eat It .
Besides jotting down what you ate, and when, you might also want to note how you were feeling right before you ate it. Were you angry, sad, or bored? We often focus so much on foods and calories, but our emotions are a huge part of our eating habits.
If you see a persistent pattern in your emotional eating, please consider talking to a counselor about it. They can be a big help in finding other ways to handle your feelings.
It’s time to move more! Losing weight requires close to an hour a day of moderate exercise, one study shows.
Plan to do cardio and strength training.
“Cardio burns the most calories, so it is ideal for fast weight loss, but afterward you need to include a few hours a week of strength training,” Dansinger says. To burn the most fat, try to break a sweat after your warm-up and keep sweating for the entire hour, Dansinger says.
If you’re not exercising now, and you have a chronic condition or a lot of weight to lose, it’s wise to check in with your health care provider first. They’ll be rooting for you! And they’ll make sure that you’re ready to work out.
Pace yourself. Don’t do too much, too soon — work your way up to help prevent injury.
One way to step up the intensity is to do interval training — brief bursts of high-intensity, followed by a more mellow pace, and repeating that pattern throughout your workout.
“Interval training allows people to work harder without having to spend the entire time at the higher level, and over time, the more you do it, the easier it becomes to burn more calories,” Blatner says.
Fad Diets and Crash Diets
I know how tempting diet crazes can sound, especially if you have a lot of weight to lose. You hear about stars who did it and look incredible.
But remember, if a diet plan sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Also, please skip any programs that promote detoxification pills, laxatives, fasting, or potions, and any that promise weight loss faster than 2-3 pounds per week.
The truth is that cutting calories below 1,050-1,200 per day is counterproductive, because you need strong muscles to be able to exercise effectively.
“When you eat too few calories, you lose fat but also precious muscle, which is the worst thing you could do because it slows your metabolism and makes it more difficult to increase exercise intensity or duration,” Dansinger says.
Fad diets also set you up for failure by depriving you of what you want. You can’t eat like that for long, and it’s too likely that you’ll rebel and end up back where you started. You deserve better than that!
So by all means, attack your weight loss goal. Put it on the fast track. But please, do it right so you set yourself up for lasting success.
Credits : http://www.webmd.com
06:05
Postimet
China’s famous Qinling pandas may run out of their favorite food by the end of this century. Scientists have simulated how three bamboo species native to central China’s Qinling Mountains might move around as climate changes. And the news is bad for hungry pandas: All three plant species shrink in range.
Bamboo, pandas’ dietary staple, is vulnerable to change because the plants take a long time to reproduce and can’t spread their seeds very far. Mao-Ning Tuanmu and his colleagues at Michigan State University in East Lansing mapped the climate conditions best suited to three bamboo species in the Qinling Mountains, home to some 270 pandas, or about 17 percent of the total wild population.
The scientists then took four popular climate simulations and calculated how conditions would change throughout the Qinling region. The results suggest that areas suited to bamboo growth would shift to higher elevations and become more isolated from the surrounding areas.
Maps of different scenarios for bamboo survival revealed that if the bamboo species manage to spread well and temperature increases stay small, then “a considerable amount of panda habitat is projected to persist over the entire century,” the scientists write online November 11 in Nature Climate Change.
But more likely is a fragmenting of panda habitat and overall bamboo shortages.
Scientists need to pay more attention, the team writes, to how changes in one part of the ecosystem (like bamboo) affect others within the same ecosystem (like pandas).
Sunday, 12 May 2013
13:03
Postimet
One thing was, however, clear. This company is growing in all sorts of ways, and with that comes growing pains.
After all those anecdotal reports that "none of my friends use it anymore", and various research firms hinting at falling user figures, the hard numbers say Facebook is still expanding. Monthly active users rose to 1.1 billion, meaning 100 million new users had arrived in the last six months.
Now many of them will be in developing countries - after all so many people have already joined in places like the US and UK that Facebook is reaching saturation point. But the company insists, that contrary to reports, it is still growing in both of those countries.
In the UK, user numbers hit 33 million in December, and I'm told there has been a modest increase since then. In the US, there has also been a rise from December's 174 million monthly users, though it looks like the growth story there is nearing its end.
There has been a decline in use of the network on the desktop but that was more than made up for by the growth in mobile use, where advertising returns have proved higher. And that rapid transformation of the firm into a mobile advertising business will be the most encouraging aspect of the figures for anyone who was brave enough to buy Facebook shares at their sky-high IPO valuation last year.
Mind you, there's growth too in the cost of running the business, as more staff are taken on. The UK operation is among those expanding rapidly, as I found out this week when I met the engineer in charge of one of the firm's most important ventures, Graph Search.
Lars Rasmussen has moved to London to head up an expanded engineering operation, and he is in the process of recruiting another couple of dozen people to work mainly on the search project. (How easy that process proves will be an interesting test of the computer science skills available in the UK.)
Each of the recruits will then spend four to six weeks at a boot camp in California, learning how Facebook writes code and attending lectures by its top executives.
That sounds like an expensive process and a contrast to the early days of a business where Mark Zuckerberg just called up a few friends for all-night coding sessions fuelled by pizza.
But if the London team can then help take Graph Search to the next stage, where users will be able to comb the network's newsfeed for all kinds of information, then it will have been a worthwhile investment. So far, Facebook's limited search bar has not done anything to worry its rivals. But if it becomes a conduit to breaking news, then the likes of Twitter may have to sit up and take notice.
Like an awkward teenager, however, Facebook is finding that growing up can be painful. Yesterday's story about its refusal to remove horrifying decapitation videos, followed by a rapid U-turn, is a case in point.
Like so many other web giants, Facebook just wants to be seen as a technology platform enabling its users to do all sorts of cool stuff without any interference. But it has grown into a massive media player, where more than a billion people - many of them under 18 - come in search of entertainment.
That means a constant spotlight is being shone on the firm's policies, with parents and regulators increasingly worried about an environment where young people now spend so much time. Welcome to adulthood, Mr Zuckerberg.
12:58
Postimet
Eighteen-year-old Andrew Brackin has just been given the offer of a life time.
He's been handed $100,000 (£67,000) to go and live in San Francisco and work on his own tech idea.
The teenager from London is one of 20 young business people now being sponsored by Peter Thiel, the co-creator of PayPal and one of the first people to put money into Facebook.
But the offer comes with a catch.
Andrew must agree to skip university and avoid any formal studying for at least two years.
'Apprentice on steroids'
"It was essentially the Apprentice on steroids," said Andrew after he was selected out of thousands of applicants from across the United States and 48 other countries.
"I got through the semi-finals where there was a Skype call and interviews and then the finals where they flew us out to California and we had to present our ideas on stage in front of all these important people from Silicon Valley."
All finalists had to make their presentation without written notes before an audience at the Yerba Buena Centre in San Francisco where Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPad.
Andrew plans to use the cash to develop Bunchy, an online platform that lets charities and other organisations raise money from their audience on social networks and websites.
'Other options'
He is only the second British winner of the Thiel Fellowship, set up by Peter Thiel to pay for 20 teenagers each year to stop studying and try to set up a business instead.
The billionaire has been famously critical of university education in the past dismissing it as a waste of time and money for some students.
His foundation's 20-under-20 programme pays each winner $100,000 over two years, which can be used for living expenses and business costs.
The teenagers selected also get help from Thiel and other top business people in Silicon Valley, the area of California around San Francisco which is home to companies like Google, Facebook and Yahoo!
"I feel that many people go to university without really thinking about what they want to do," said Andrew, who went to the state-run Brit School in south London where singers like Amy Winehouse and Adele once studied.
"There are other options for people who know what they want and don't necessarily need a degree to get there."
Source : bbc.co.uk
12:49
Postimet
Cold War nuclear bunkers are the latest attempt to safeguard US bat populations under attack from white-nose syndrome.
Scientists have converted two of the 43 bunkers at the former Loring Air Force Base, Maine, which has been a wildlife reserve since the mid-1990s.
The artificial hibernacula are designed to safeguard bats from the disease that was first recorded in the US in 2006.
White-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed up to an estimated 6.7 million bats so far and is continuing to spread.
The disease, first described in a cave system in the state of New York, affects hibernating species is now found in 22 US states and five Canadian provinces.
The once secretive site in Maine, which was the closest US-based airbase to Moscow and a key asset for the US Strategic Air Command during the Cold War, was closed in 1994 before being reborn as the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge.
Steve Agius, the refuge's assistant manager, said that staff felt the derelict grass-roofed bunkers had more potential ecologically than just offering nesting sites for sandpipers and sparrows.
"The bunkers remained a curiosity for years and biological staff speculated that perhaps the structures could provide overwintering hibernacula for bats," he said.
The devastating impact of WNS on a growing number of US bat species led to the bunkers being assessed as potential winter homes for hibernating bats.
As a result, one of the bunkers was modified by US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) staff, and 30 male little-brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) arrived at their new winter home in December 2012.
The bunker's conversion included installing roosting places for the bats and CCTV to monitor the hibernating mammals.
Ann Froschauer, the USFWS WNS spokeswoman, explained the merits of using these artificial caves in the battle against the killer disease.
"One of the problems about WNS is that the fungus persists in the environment for an unknown amount of time and does not require bats as a host," she explained.
"If there are no bats then the fungus goes back to doing its normal soil function, such as degrading organic matter. Then, if any new bats come into the area, they are exposed to it."
Source : www.bbc.co.uk
12:37
Postimet
Do our mothers remain intrinsically unknowable to us because we have such a vested interest in our own emotional survival that they must remain “mothers” to us and not fleshed-out human beings?
Not too long before my mother died, she told me that when she couldn’t sleep in the night, she would go sit in a striped wing chair near the window of her apartment.
“You just sit there in the dark?” I asked.
“Oh no,” she replied, “I sit there and I review my life, chapter by chapter.” Only because it was she who said this, it came out in her New England accent, still unshakable after five decades of living here, as “chaptuh by chaptuh.”
It wasn’t until after she was gone that I, who had called her daily, seen her weekly, and thought that no mother and daughter could be closer, realized I was missing a few “chaptuhs.”
What had I been thinking? She was 90, so there’d been a lot of time for me to ask her anything I wanted to know — but somehow I still had questions:
Why was there an emotional distance between her and her siblings that couldn’t be explained merely by geography? When had she been the happiest with my father, from whom she was divorced when I was in my 20s? What had it been like to be a single woman, working overseas, approaching 30 and still — unusual in those days — not settled down with a husband and kids?
I’m not alone. A close friend said to me of her mother, who had six children, died at 56 of cancer and “might have been depressed” for years: “I would like to have known who my mother really was.” Another was hungry for details about her mother’s early married life, and yet another said: “I actually sat down and interviewed my mom on digital, grilling her on everything from getting married at 30 (scandalously old in 1961), travelling in Europe on her own, hooking up with my Catholic-Irish immigrant dad to her Ontario Protestant parents’ dismay.”
This daughter came to the same conclusion as others: “I still think, I don’t really know who she is.”
Are we afraid to ask our mothers deeply personal questions, concerned that it might be a breach of their privacy or even come across as judgmental? (Believe me, many mothers, even in “those” days, whenever those days were, were pregnant at the altar, and yet so few have talked about it.)
I wonder too whether our mothers remain intrinsically unknowable to us because we have such a vested interest in our own emotional survival that they must remain “mothers” to us and not fleshed-out human beings, capable of grand passions, great deceits and just plain contrary behaviour.
My mother was a delightful story teller — about growing up in a New Hampshire family that valued education above all, about her college days, about her administrative work overseas in the U.S. Foreign Service and about her fateful marriage to my father, which brought her to Toronto.
She always placed herself in the middle of one startling mishap or another: the time she felt like throwing herself down the college library steps after thinking she would fail her history exam; or a challenging domestic moment when my father, a street savvy newspaperman, rented out a room to Uncle Miltie, one of his cronies, who brought home ladies of the night, much to my mother’s consternation.
“You just sit there in the dark?” I asked.
“Oh no,” she replied, “I sit there and I review my life, chapter by chapter.” Only because it was she who said this, it came out in her New England accent, still unshakable after five decades of living here, as “chaptuh by chaptuh.”
It wasn’t until after she was gone that I, who had called her daily, seen her weekly, and thought that no mother and daughter could be closer, realized I was missing a few “chaptuhs.”
What had I been thinking? She was 90, so there’d been a lot of time for me to ask her anything I wanted to know — but somehow I still had questions:
Why was there an emotional distance between her and her siblings that couldn’t be explained merely by geography? When had she been the happiest with my father, from whom she was divorced when I was in my 20s? What had it been like to be a single woman, working overseas, approaching 30 and still — unusual in those days — not settled down with a husband and kids?
I’m not alone. A close friend said to me of her mother, who had six children, died at 56 of cancer and “might have been depressed” for years: “I would like to have known who my mother really was.” Another was hungry for details about her mother’s early married life, and yet another said: “I actually sat down and interviewed my mom on digital, grilling her on everything from getting married at 30 (scandalously old in 1961), travelling in Europe on her own, hooking up with my Catholic-Irish immigrant dad to her Ontario Protestant parents’ dismay.”
This daughter came to the same conclusion as others: “I still think, I don’t really know who she is.”
Are we afraid to ask our mothers deeply personal questions, concerned that it might be a breach of their privacy or even come across as judgmental? (Believe me, many mothers, even in “those” days, whenever those days were, were pregnant at the altar, and yet so few have talked about it.)
I wonder too whether our mothers remain intrinsically unknowable to us because we have such a vested interest in our own emotional survival that they must remain “mothers” to us and not fleshed-out human beings, capable of grand passions, great deceits and just plain contrary behaviour.
My mother was a delightful story teller — about growing up in a New Hampshire family that valued education above all, about her college days, about her administrative work overseas in the U.S. Foreign Service and about her fateful marriage to my father, which brought her to Toronto.
She always placed herself in the middle of one startling mishap or another: the time she felt like throwing herself down the college library steps after thinking she would fail her history exam; or a challenging domestic moment when my father, a street savvy newspaperman, rented out a room to Uncle Miltie, one of his cronies, who brought home ladies of the night, much to my mother’s consternation.
But she didn’t dwell on the deep emotional texture of her life, how she kept it together, raised two kids to adore her, remained, by necessity, a self-sufficient woman who lived for almost 30 years as a single woman after her divorce. I do know she regarded her divorce as necessary and was happy after it.
If she had been a wife and mother today, would she have, in the early years, joined the overshare era with one of those sadmommy.com blogs that leave no moment, no matter how banal, unrecorded? Hard to imagine. Unless those blogs disappear into the ether, it’s debatable whether mothers today will leave any air of maternal mystery at all.
I knew who my mother was. I knew her deeply — at a certain point we became each other’s confidants and lifelong supports.
And yet she obviously chose not to tell me certain things, whether from oversight or reluctance, or because we had other things to talk about. Or maybe just because I forgot to ask.
It’s not just emotionally resonant questions I have left, they’re also about her times — her favourite dress, the social mores, what her parents were like in her childhood.
On Mother’s Day, if your mother is still alive, maybe now is the time to start asking those questions. You never know when it will be too late.
Source : Thestar.com
12:26
Postimet
The US State Department has written to the gun's designer, Defense Distributed, saying that publishing such designs, which enable anyone with a 3D printer to produce their own plastic gun, could breach arms-control regulations.
The order, however, comes after the blueprints were downloaded more than 100,000 times, and cannot prevent their further redistribution by others who have already downloaded them.
The files have been removed from the company's Defcad site, and were being hosted by the Mega online service.
Social news site Reddit has also been used to publicise existing links to the blueprints on the filesharing service Pirate Bay, which is likely to mean their further distribution is hard to prevent.
The Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance told Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson to ensure the designs be "removed from public access". It said he must prove he had not broken laws on shipping weapons overseas by putting the files online and letting people outside the US download them.
Mr Wilson told Forbes “We have to comply”, but claimed the State Department's fears was wrong to worry because Defense Distributed met requirements that exempted it from the arms-control regulations.
Instructions for making The Liberator, a plastic handgun that could escape detection by conventional airport security, were made freely available to download from the internet by anti-government activists in the US.
It was created by a group in Texas that aims to make “WikiWeapons” that can be reproduced with a home computer and a $1,000 (£644) 3D printer that uses heated plastics instead of ink.
“It’s a demonstration that technology will allow access to things that governments would otherwise say that you shouldn’t have access to,” Cody Wilson, the leader of Defense Distributed, told The Daily Telegraph.
“Things that there are legitimate demands for will be available,” said Mr Wilson, 25, who is described as a free-market anarchist. “That’s the point we want to make.”
Video footage showed Mr Wilson successfully test firing the gun at a target.
The Liberator, which fires .380-calibre bullets, comprises 15 printable plastic components and a single metal nail as a firing pin, which appears to be too small to trigger metal detector systems.
It was produced with a 3D printer that Mr Wilson bought on eBay for $8,000 (£5,140). The printer draws on a supply of a heated common plastic where a regular printer uses an ink cartridge.
It dispenses layer upon layer of the heated plastic to gradually build a three-dimensional solid object, as dictated by the computer design software that handles blueprints such as Mr Wilson’s.
The order, however, comes after the blueprints were downloaded more than 100,000 times, and cannot prevent their further redistribution by others who have already downloaded them.
The files have been removed from the company's Defcad site, and were being hosted by the Mega online service.
Social news site Reddit has also been used to publicise existing links to the blueprints on the filesharing service Pirate Bay, which is likely to mean their further distribution is hard to prevent.
The Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance told Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson to ensure the designs be "removed from public access". It said he must prove he had not broken laws on shipping weapons overseas by putting the files online and letting people outside the US download them.
Mr Wilson told Forbes “We have to comply”, but claimed the State Department's fears was wrong to worry because Defense Distributed met requirements that exempted it from the arms-control regulations.
Instructions for making The Liberator, a plastic handgun that could escape detection by conventional airport security, were made freely available to download from the internet by anti-government activists in the US.
It was created by a group in Texas that aims to make “WikiWeapons” that can be reproduced with a home computer and a $1,000 (£644) 3D printer that uses heated plastics instead of ink.
“It’s a demonstration that technology will allow access to things that governments would otherwise say that you shouldn’t have access to,” Cody Wilson, the leader of Defense Distributed, told The Daily Telegraph.
“Things that there are legitimate demands for will be available,” said Mr Wilson, 25, who is described as a free-market anarchist. “That’s the point we want to make.”
Video footage showed Mr Wilson successfully test firing the gun at a target.
The Liberator, which fires .380-calibre bullets, comprises 15 printable plastic components and a single metal nail as a firing pin, which appears to be too small to trigger metal detector systems.
It was produced with a 3D printer that Mr Wilson bought on eBay for $8,000 (£5,140). The printer draws on a supply of a heated common plastic where a regular printer uses an ink cartridge.
It dispenses layer upon layer of the heated plastic to gradually build a three-dimensional solid object, as dictated by the computer design software that handles blueprints such as Mr Wilson’s.
12:11
Postimet
High winds combined with a spring thaw produced a massive wall of ice that blew ashore in the small Canadian lakeside community of Manitoba, causing major damage to a number of homes.
Source : Telegraph.co.uk
12:02
Postimet
Alexander Armstrong, the comedian, has hit out at criticism of "posh" people who have attended public schools as a form of social injustice.
He can trace his ancestors back to William the Conqueror and hails from “the junior end of a grand Irish aristocratic family”.
So, perhaps inevitably, Alexander Armstrong has little patience with what he calls “posh-bashing”.
The television presenter, actor, comedian (one half of the Armstrong and Miller duo) regards attacks on the “posh” as more than inverse snobbery, or a way of sending up a Government with a large quotient of Old Etonians.
For him, posh-bashing is a form of social injustice.
“I do bitterly resent it when people of any kind are attacked because of something that is no fault of theirs — like who their parents are.
"Why should your background be held against you? It is so short sighted. There are plenty of reasons for disliking people, but this tribal aversion to anyone with a posh voice is very boring.”
His words echo a complaint made by the Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who said that sniping at his privileged background had made him consider decamping for America where he would be judged on what he did, rather than which school he went to.
Their concerns have been raised at a time of growing consciousness of what might be described in shorthand as “posh”, with an Etonian Prime Minister accused of having too many of his own kind in Cabinet (George Osborne, St Paul’s, son of a baronet; Nick Clegg, Westminster, son of a banker) and perhaps more importantly in kitchen cabinet: his new policy chief is Jo Johnson, the Old Etonian brother of Boris, the Mayor of London, and around him are the “chumocracy”, which includes Edward Llewellyn, his school friend turned chief of staff and Jesse Norman, another Old Etonian policy adviser.
Beyond politics, the perception that a privileged background and public school education is the key to public life has created resentment.
Our top model is not Croydon’s Kate Moss, but Cara Delevingne, granddaughter of a knight, educated at Bedales; the Archbishop of Canterbury is an Old Etonian, while Cumberbatch (Harrow) spoke out because of criticism that British acting is dominated by public school products: Dominic West (Eton); Damian Lewis (Eton); Eddie Redmayne (Eton); and Emma Watson (The Dragon School); Sienna Miller (Heathfield St Mary’s School), among others.
Armstrong’s own fightback against stereotyping on account of his parentage (well-to-do upbringing in rural Northumberland and public school — Durham, not Eton) has, he admits, been rather more modest. Xander, as his friends know him, has chosen Toff Media as the name for the production company he has set up with comedy partner, Ben Miller.
But he clearly feels the slight deeply. The perception that he is too upper class for popular taste has, he says, cost him in career terms. “I’m not anticipating an offer to appear in Shameless [Channel 4’s drama set on a Manchester council estate],” he joked.
More concrete was the BBC’s initial rejection of Armstrong and Miller’s sketch show format after their Edinburgh Festival triumph in 1996, because the Corporation said it wanted to steer clear of any more Oxbridge comics.
The pair met when undergraduates at Trinity College, Cambridge, as part of a Footlights generation that included Rachel Weisz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins.
Instead, the duo turned to Channel 4, where there were no metal detectors for silver spoons in the mouth, and built a reputation with four series before returning to the BBC in 2007.
Indeed, Armstrong’s is now one of the most ubiquitous faces on the small screen: he played Caroline Quentin’s husband in Life Begins and Reggie Perrin’s next door neighbour in the Martin Clunes remake, along with an appearance in the Dr Who Christmas special and stints as a presenter in shows including The Great British Weather.
He even has another high-profile chairing job — on the BBC teatime quiz, Pointless, which is in its seventh series. It has become the “new Countdown”, attracting audiences of 3 million, and is beloved of the same late-afternoon set who once tuned in to Carol Vordeman and Richard Whiteley.
Ironically, in 2007, Armstrong declined the chance to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Whiteley.
The reason we are meeting is to talk about a spin-off book from the quiz show, The 100 Most Pointless Things in the World, with its lists of “pointless things”: jukebox musicals, inappropriate caravan names and game show hosts.
Armstrong, though, is far too well-mannered to insist on dwelling at length on a book.
Instead, he chatters away on whatever subject comes up. Where most television presenters tend to pick their words carefully and explain, “I wouldn’t want to offend anyone”, he leans back in his chair, balances one long leg on the knee of the other, and holds forth. We could be the two RAF pilots in one of the best-loved Armstrong and Miller sketches, chewing on our pipes and the state of the world in the mess room, except that we are not talking as they do in street slang (“So iz you say you iz gonna shoot uz up wi dem gunz?”).
A question about the “pointless things” that Armstrong and his co-presenter and co-author Richard Osman left out of the book leads us on to politicians.
And then, just as effortlessly, to David Cameron, whom Armstrong has played twice in Channel 4 dramas (though there is no real physical resemblance, with Armstrong’s large ears and bony face a world away from the Prime Minister’s neater, smoother, rounder features).
The first time was in The Trial of Tony Blair, and then again more recently in Hacks (albeit under the transparent disguise of being called David Bullingdon). Did he get any feedback from the PM?
“Not directly,” he replies, “but Liz Murdoch did say to me afterwards: “I enjoyed your David Cameron.” She left a dot dot dot afterwards, which I suppose was because Hacks was rude about the men in her family.”
I wait for him to apologise for dropping this humdinger of a name, but instead, he remarks sagely: “Very balanced, Liz. The most balanced of them all. She can take a joke.”
Elisabeth Murdoch and her husband, Matthew Freud, are key members of the Chipping Norton set, near the part of Oxfordshire where Armstrong recently moved with his wife and three sons.
In the past, Armstrong has eulogised his own childhood, with his landowning GP father and aristocratic mother, in remote Northumberland. How does Oxfordshire match up?
“It’s definitely more suburban,” he admits, “not actually suburban, of course, but manicured. Very Farrow and Ball. I associate the farms of my childhood with mud and filth and more mud. There’s less of that in Oxfordshire.”
There is a note of apology in his voice. Indeed, he’s making his new home sound something he and Miller would have sent up ruthlessly in one of their sketches. “Yes, we probably would,” he concedes. “Before I had children, I had my cake. I think it would be true to say that I am now going through the phase of my life that might be labelled 'and eating it’.”
Source : Telegraph.co.uk
07:32
Postimet
1. Let's start small:
5. Now get ready to have your childhood mind blown:
6.
7. DID YOU KNOW? The "YKK" on your zipper stands for "Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikigaisha:"
8.DID YOU KNOW? 3.14 is PIE backwards:
9.DID YOU KNOW? The dot over over an "i" is called a "tittle:"
10.DID YOU KNOW? Cashews grow like this:
11.And pineapples like this:
12.Before we move on, here's the ending to "Inception" explained:
14.Here's what chalk looks like under a microscope:
16.Speaking of sand, there are more stars in space than there are grains of sand on every beach on Earth:
Let's go deeper:
17. If you shrunk the Sun down to the size of a white blood cell and shrunk the Milky Way Galaxy down using the same scale, it would be the size of the continental United States:
18.Speaking of things that are huge, a Blue Whale's heart is so big, a small child can swim through the veins:
19.There's enough water in Lake Superior to cover all of North and South America in one foot of water:
20.Here's the true size of Africa:
21.And the Pacific Ocean:
22.Let's think bigger: If you dug a hole to the center of the Earth and dropped a book down, it would take 45 minutes to reach the bottom:
23.Here's what Jupiter would look like if it were the same distance to Earth as the Moon:
24.And here's what a sunset on Mars looks like:
Too much? Just breathe:
25.DID YOU KNOW? There are more bacteria cells in your body than actual body cells:
26.DID YOU KNOW? John Tyler, the 10th President of the United States, has a grandson that's alive today:
John Tyler had a son, Lyon, when he was 63. Lyon had a son, Harrison Tyler, at 75.
27.DID YOU KNOW? A compressed spring weighs more than a relaxed one:
28.JUST THINK: We know more about the surface of the moon than the bottom of the ocean:
29.Speaking of the ocean, there are more atoms in a glass of water than glasses of water in all the oceans on Earth:
30.Speaking of time: The Ottoman Empire still existed the last time the Chicago Cubs won a World Series:
31.Keep this in mind, too:
Mind not blown yet? Things are about to get REAL:
32.The Great Pyramid was built circa 2560 BC...
... and Cleopatra lived 69 BC – 30 BC...
... and the first Moon landing was in 1969, AD...
which means Cleopatra lived closer to the Moon landing than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid.
33.Speaking of the pyramids, they were as old to the Romans as the Romans are to us:
34.Should we keep going? The difference in time between when Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus lived is greater than the difference in time between Tyrannosaurus Rex and now:
35.Here's one more: In 1903 the Wright Brothers flew for the first time...
...38 years later, in 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor...
... and 28 years later, in 1969, man landed on the Moon.
That's 66 years.
PHEW! That was intense. Here's a picture of a puppy burrito (puprito) to chill you out:
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