Tag Archive for: science

Extreme Cheapskates: Testicle Donations

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The video above is from an episode of Extreme Cheapskates. It is said that people’s loose change tantamounts to millions of dollars each year. This extreme cheapskate hunts down dimes, nickels and pennies all of Las Vegas to gain a few extra cash every day.

Mark is a cheapskate. There’s no other word for it. When a dog chewed up his shoes, instead of buying a new pair, he took a marker and coloured in the damaged tongue of his shoes. He buys his shoes from the shoe repair store too, however, we don’t see too much wrong with that.

Mark even keeps his grocery bills at under $60 a MONTH! He disregards expiration dates on food as well! Spending no more than a dollar on a single item. Frugal to say the least!

Mark even, now this is cheeky, asks people at the laundromat if he can put HIS CLOTHES in the washer/dryer with other people’s clothes. Oh Mark! Extreme Cheapskate indeed!

He does like a gamble, but in true Extreme Cheapskate fashion, it’s not with his own money. He’ll use money that he finds around town on the floors of Las Vegas. However at the casino he’ll get drinks for free. Which in a bar would cost $12. I can see his point there I guess. Win Win. Doesn’t spend a dime. Could win loads of cash and get’s free booze. I’ll give you that one Mark.

Extreme Cheapskates: Medical Studies

However, Mark, in an attempt to save or rather earn some money, has over the years volunteered in over 100 medical studies.

The riskier the trials the more money he gets paid. He also keeps the scrubs.

One medical trial that caught marks eye was to Donate a testical for $35,000. WHAT? $35K for one ball?! Where do I sign up?!

Maybe being an extreme cheapskate isn’t so bad afterall.

As Mark has signed up for so many trials he gets free check ups each month to see if he is a good candidate for each study.

The doctor wasn’t too pleased when he heard Mark’s reasoning for giving up a ball though.

Losing a ball however, leads to Mark growing even more of the ‘Man Boobs’ as the doctor called them.

Ultimately, the doc put an end to Mark’s dreams of losing a ball. However he did get given the go ahead for testosterone replacement trials, which pays $520 per month.

Which pays for his rent and car payment each month.

You see may be Mark has a point here……maybe.

 

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Exoskeleton

Exoskeleton helps man walk again!

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Technology is amazing. A paralysed man has been able to move all of his limbs for the very first time in 4 years. All thanks to a mind controlled exoskeleton suit French researchers are reporting.

Thibault, 40, said that his first steps felt like “the first man on the moon”. While his movements, are far from perfect, the robo-suit can only be used in the lab. While researchers are saying that this could one day improve patients quality of life.

Thibault had surgery to place two implants on his brain. Which cover part of the brain that control movement. A total of 64 electrodes on each implant read brain activity and beam instructions to a computer nearby. Software on the computer then reads the brainwaves and sends the instructions back to the exoskeleton. The exoskeleton isn’t light, Thibault has to be strapped into the exoskeleton to use it. All he has to do is think “walk” and it will set off a chain of movements in the suit to move his leges forward. He can even control each of the arms too!

Ease of use

Thibault fell from 15M at a nightclub 4years ago, this left him paralysed. He spent the following 2 years after the accident in hopsital. However, in 2017 he took part in an exoskeleton trial with Clinatec and the University of Grenoble.

At first he used the brain implatns to control a virtual character in a computer game. Before moving on to walking in the suit.

“It was like [being the] first man on the Moon. I didn’t walk for two years. I forgot what it is to stand, I forgot I was taller than a lot of people in the room.

It took a lot longer to learn how to control the arms.

“It was very difficult because it is a combination of multiple muscles and movements. This is the most impressive thing I do with the exoskeleton.”

The exoskeleton

The exoskeleton weighs 65kg and is very sophisticated, however it won’t completely restore function just yet. Yet it displays an advance on similar approaches which allows people to control a single limb with thoughts.

Thibault needs to be strapped in and attached to a ceiling harness. This minimises the risk of him falling over. Therefore while amazing, the device needs a lot of work before can be used outside the lab.

“This is far from autonomous walking,” Prof Alim-Louis Benabid, the president of the Clinatec executive board, told BBC News.

“He does not have the quick and precise movements not to fall, nobody on earth does this.”

Thibault was successful 71% of the time where he needed to use the exoskeleton to move his upper and lower arms and rotate his wrists to touch specific targets.

“We have solved the problem and shown the principle is correct. This is proof we can extend the mobility of patients in an exoskeleton….This is in [the] direction of giving better quality of life.”

Prof Benabid, who developed deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease, speaking to the BBC.

What next?

French scientists say they’ll continue to refine the tech, at the moment they’re limited by the amount of data that they can read from the brain. Send to a computer, interpret that data and then send it back to the exoskeleton.

The amount of time they have is very miniscule. They’ve got 350 milliseconds to go from thought, to movement. Otherwise operating the system becomes difficult to control.

The good news is that out of the 64 electrodes available on each implant to the researchers, they’re only using 32. This means that there is a lot of potential to read the brain in much more detail. Using more powerful computers and sophisticated AI to interpret the data from the brain.

While it’s not possible to move fingers with the exoskeleton, they hope to advance it to such a stage they can move and pick up objects. While he has already used the implant to control a wheelchair.

Dangers

Transhumanism is ways of using exoskeletons to enhance human abilities. This includes military applications.

Professor Benabid told the BBC his thoughts on this:

“We are absolutely not going in the direction of these extreme and stupid applications..

Our job is to repair the injured patients who have lost function.”

The Experts…

Professor Tom Shakespeare from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was very complimentary of the technology. Stating that the study presents a “welcome and exciting advance”.

While also stating that the tech may be a while off before becoming a viable alternative:

“A danger of hype always exists in this field. Cost constraints mean that hi-tech options are never going to be available to most people in the world with spinal cord injury.”

Tom Shakespeare also said that only 15% of people with disabilites have a wheelchair or other assistive devices.

Details of the exoskeleton have been published in The Lancet Neurology journal.

 

 

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(BBC)

 

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Rick Edwards how to kill an hour

Episode 316 Rick Edwards

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Science(ish)

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We recently had Rick Edwards on the show and had a wonderful time chatting to him about all things science, Fatbergs and hunting for treasure in rivers. Most notably we discussed his Science podcast that he presents alongside Dr Michael Brooks: Science(ish). Science(ish) is all about discussing the science in popular culture.

What are the episodes about?

In the podcast that we had with Rick we discussed recent Science(ish) shows such as discussing what would happen if there were Nuclear Warfare. Dr Michael Brooks’ revelation that the best way to figure out humanity. It would be to place loads of babies on a desert island and do experiments on them. How plants defend themselves against caterpillars. Plus Rick informed us about a special that was once shelved, it was due to be released on Valentines Day. To find out exactly what the special was, listen to Rick’s show with us! Furthermore Marcus found out during his chat with Rick that they’re doing an episode on Wolverine soon! In this EP, Rick discusses with Dr Michael Brooks about regeneration, much like Wolverine! Also we touched on genetic mutation and how people may be able to mutate gene’s in the future to design their children!

Science

We had a great time chatting to Rick about his podcast Science(ish) and book of the same name. It is very apparent that Rick is very passionate about Science. Yet, the things he spoke about whilst with us, were made very simple for us to understand. This is what Science(ish) is all about, talking about Science in a cool, entertaining and interesting way. So, therefore, even if you’re not a fan of Science, you may have had some Science discussions with your mates without even knowing about it as Rick stated in the podcast!

Science is not as dull as many Tv shows and text books may lead you to believe. While Science(ish) is the cool cousin of that. You will want to delve into things with your friends about many of the subjects that Edwards and Brooks discuss on Science(ish). Therefore we feel that it will open your eyes to the things! Such as how exciting and exhilarating Science can be, more specifically the future of the world.

Science(ish) is a very cool podcast and we highly recommend that you check out Rick’s podcast, you can listen to Science(ish) by clicking here!

Listen to Rick Edwards on How To Kill An Hour by clicking here!

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UK Woman Can See More Colours?!

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Most people are trichromats, possessing three types of cone cells to see color with. A woman in northern England has four types of working cone cells, which means she has the ability to see far more colors than most of us can. (Futurism)

 

Scientists have announced that a woman in the UK has an extra type of cone cell, (the receptor cells that detect colour) in her eyes.

This basically means that, according to estimates, she can see not just 1 colour more than the rest of us, she can see an incredible 99million more colours! She is reportedly amongst a small number of people called ‘tetrachromats’ all of whom have this really cool super-vision. Whilst the rest of us mortals have ‘trichromats’ which means we, normal people have three cells instead of four. Each cell accounting for 100 shades and with all different combinations of each colour, each cell combined means we can only distinguish 1 million different colours. With those who are colour blind only seeing 10,000 different shades because they only have two out of three functioning cone cells.

Dark matter discovery

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New map reveals more detail about dark matter

There has been an age old question that no one has been able to answer yet  – ‘what is dark matter made of?’

New research might be closer to the answer as new images help scientists understand what dark matter is made from and learn more about another mysterious phenomenon called dark energy.

The subject matter for many science fiction films and TV series over the past 5 decades, we might be a step closer to getting to the bottom of dark matter…

According to Professor Ofer Lahav of University College London (UCL) the map would provide new insights into how the Universe operates and he explained: “Once we have the full survey, 300 million galaxies and a thousand supernovae, we may be providing input for a new Einstein to tell us what does it all mean – why is the Universe made the way it is?”

iOS AutoComplete Essay!

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A New Zealand professor has been asked to present a talk at a US event based on Nuclear physics, yet there is a lot of gibberish throughout!

The academic paper was written by Christoph Bartneck an associate professor at the Human Interface Technology laboratory (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) after an email asked him to submit a paper to the International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics in the United States in November.

Written only in iOS auto complete Christoph said he “resorted to iOS autocomplete function to help” when writing the paper. Writing on his blog he said:

“Since I have practically no knowledge of nuclear physics…I started a sentence with ‘atomic’ or ‘nuclear’ and then randomly hit the autocomplete suggestions”

Here is an extract from Christophs paper:

“The atoms of a better universe will have the right for the same as you are the way we shall have to be a great place for a great time to enjoy the day you are a wonderful person to your great time to take the fun and take a great time and enjoy the great day you will be a wonderful time for your parents and kids,”

Christoph decided to submit the paper under a fake identity, it was accepted three hours later and he was asked to pay a fee of $1099 US dollars to register at the conference. It was at this point that Christoph decided that enough was enough and his fun was over as the University would not have liked to pay for him to go to such an event.

Christoph told Guardian Australia: “My impression is that this is not a particularly good conference…. reasonably certain that this is a money-making conference with little to no commitment to science” due to such a high registration fee and the fact that his paper was accepted in such a quick amount of time…not least forgetting it was full of text that didn’t make any sense!

What’s the funniest autocomplete you have done? Let us know tweet us @howtokillanhour

To hear the guys talking about this please click here!