Counting the ‘Blessings’ of Insomnia

By Gordon Marino in The New York Times

Drip, drip, drip — that’s what insomniac thoughts feel like, a leaky faucet behind the eyes. Last night the ideas were plinking; forehead-pounding regrets over past deeds, horrid fantasies, car crashes of expectations, unrealizable longings. It’s sheer torture. I don’t deserve it! Drip: Or maybe I do.

For decades, I have been spending my nights flopping around the bed and finally stomping to the medicine cabinet for anything that will put me under the waves. The story I recite to myself, often in the grips of sleep deprivation and to the rumble of garbage trucks, is that it all goes back to being awoken constantly as a kid by parents battling like Vikings in the living room.

I have done my share of meditation in that frayed state of wired exhaustion, but unlike the Romanian writer E.M. Cioran, I never learned to take serious instruction from sleeplessness. Born in Transylvania in 1911, Cioran hardly ever shut his eyes. In fact, at his death in 1995, there was exaggerated talk that he had not slept in half a century. Whatever his hours of slumber, the night watchman’s systematic reflections on the existential meaning of insomnia warrant the attention of our nation, which outpaces every country on earth in the consumption of sleeping medication.

*****
[Read the full article at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/counting-the-blessings-of-insomnia/?nl=opinion&emc=tya1]

Baggy Winecoat

Simply remove the wine bag from the box and put it into the Baggy Winecoat. Great for picnics.

*****
[http://www.7gadgets.com/2010/03/29/baggy-winecoat/19528]

How Fish Grow New Hearts

A regenerating zebrafish heart 14 days after injury. Cardiac muscle is labeled in green, DNA is blue and a marker of cell division is shown in red. Credit: Dr. Juan Carlos Ispizua Belmonte, Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

By Emily Singer in Technology Review

The small, unassuming zebrafish, which has become a stable in biology labs across the globe, can perform an impressive feat of regeneration–it can withstand losing 20 percent of a ventricle, a chamber of the heart, growing it back within a month. Two new studies published yesterday in Nature show the animals regrow their hearts by triggering cell division of adult heart muscle cells rather than via stem cells. If researchers can elucidate the chemical signaling involved in the process, they may be able to find ways to stimulate heart repair or regeneration in humans. While recent research suggests that human hearts do have a limited capacity to generate new cells, heart muscle tends to form scars after heart attack rather than healthy new tissue.

*****
[Read the full article at http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24974/]

Robot Takes Over for Humans as Dental Guinea Pig

In Japan, the search for lifelike robots that can serve practical tasks continues unabated, with the rest of the world watching in hushed awe. Here we have Hanako Showa, a dental simulator pretending to be a Japanese woman. She giggles, winces in pain, has a moving tongue, and even features a gag reflex among other things. The device is the result of a collaboration between Tmsuk, a robot maker, and three Japanese universities that worked on the medical side of the project.

*****
[Read the article and watch the video at http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2010/03/robot_takes_over_for_humans_as_dental_guinea_pig.html]

World’s Most Stunning Data Centers

A newly opened high security data center run by one of Sweden’s largest ISPs, located in an old nuclear bunker deep below the bedrock of Stockholm city and sealed off from the world by entrance doors 16 inches thick.

HacknMod bring you photographs of the world’s most stunning data centers and impressively artistic cabling.

*****
[http://hacknmod.com/hack/worlds-most-stunning-data-centers/]

Synergistic Synthesis XVII Sub B1 Chair

From BornRich

Known for sensational events and publicity-hungry sales, the Chicago-based Wright Modern Design auction house included the Synergistic Synthesis XVII Sub B1 Chair in the March 23 auction. Designed by San Francisco based designer, artist and scientist, Kenneth Smythe, this extraordinary chair is based on the design originating from evolutionary models of nature. Sold for $3,125, the chair is made from Finn birch Laminate, Formica Colorcore, Latigo leather, Sunbrella acrylic, top grain leather, foam rubber, steel and maple dowels. The designer beautifully blends the complex structure into a nice piece of chair, and no one should fail to get moved by the gorgeous cool-color combination.

*****
[www.bornrich.org]

Flying Boat up for auction: Curtiss MF Seagull

By Tannith Catermole in Gizmag

No-one should fail to be moved by the gorgeous warm-colored wood, hammered copper trims and time-worn patina of this gorgeous piece of antiquity. One of the last known Curtiss MF Seagull Flying Boats is to be sold at auction on Tuesday April 13 at Bonhams in New York. Rich in history, this beautiful vintage sea plane was designed and created by engineer and aviator Glenn H. Curtiss, otherwise known as “the Father of Naval Aviation.”

*****
[Read the rest at http://www.gizmag.com/curtiss-mf-seagull-flying-boat-auctioned/14622/]

Not a Tourist

Tom Swick: On the evolving role of the travel writer in the age of mass tourism and YouTube

Row 24, seats A, B, and C.

The young woman by the window turns to the man in the middle and smiles. He smoothes her hair and tells her she is going to love his city. Not even off the ground, and they have already created a private lair in the still-upright theater of coach.

The man in the aisle seat immediately experiences feelings of exclusion, envy, and inadequacy. Travel, most people believe, is best when shared—an attitude that makes the solitary traveler one of life’s losers.

Just in time, the man in the aisle seat reminds himself that he is not a loser. He is a travel writer. He will not be engaged in the superficial pursuits of tourists but in the difficult task of trying to make sense of an alien culture. He looks over somewhat pityingly at the couple now discussing an evening trip to the casino.

Once the plane is airborne, he glances across the aisle at the woman sitting with an open laptop. He overhears her tell her neighbor that she is a public health expert going to fight malaria. She would present an affront to a businessman’s sense of importance. The travel writer leans back with a grimace, caught in the eternal no-man’s land between pleasure and purpose.

The travel writer, when thought of at all, is regarded as a charmed figure, never stymied in front of a customs officer or a computer screen. The travel writer, when he reflects, sees himself as aimless, clueless but nevertheless underappreciated.

He picks a destination, or is assigned one, and often it’s a place he’s never been. Before departure he reads travel books, history books, relevant novels—even learns a few words of the language—but he remains hopelessly behind the humbling crowds of specialists, anthropologists, diplomats, field workers, exchange students, business travelers, expatriates, flight crews, and repeat vacationers who have preceded him.

So he scrunches into seat 24C, furiously skimming the guidebook he didn’t quite get to during his pre-trip preparations. A long flight is an opportunity to cram, a seat-belted all-nighter. There will be a test in the morning.

After the landing, the lovebirds and the do-gooder and all the other passengers disappear in a rush to restart their lives, and the strangeness of the travel writer’s surroundings distracts him from the fact that he doesn’t have one. At least not here, not yet.

*****
[Read the full article at http://www.worldhum.com/features/tom-swick/not-a-tourist-20100322/]

Last Supper helpings have grown

Researchers found that from the years 1000 to 2000 the entrees depicted on the plates laid before Jesus' followers grew by about 70%, and the bread by 23%. (Jason Koski / Cornell University / Associated Press)

An unusual study looks at the food portions in artistic depictions of the Last Supper throughout history. The apostles have eaten better and better over the years, scholars say.

By Melissa Healy in the Los Angeles Times

The Christian faith holds several acts of “super-sizing” to be miracles accomplished by Jesus Christ — a handful of fish and loaves of bread expanded to feed thousands; a wedding feast running low on wine suddenly awash in the stuff. Now a new study of portion expansion puts Jesus once more at the center.

In a bid to uncover the roots of super-sized American fare, a pair of sibling scholars has turned to an unusual source: 52 artists’ renderings of the New Testament’s Last Supper.

Their findings, published online Tuesday in the International Journal of Obesity, indicate that serving sizes have been marching heavenward for 1,000 years.

“I think people assume that increased serving sizes, or ‘portion distortion,’ is a recent phenomenon,” said Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab and author of “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.” “But this research indicates that it’s a general trend for at least the last millennium.”

To reach their conclusion, Wansink and his brother Craig, a biblical scholar at Virginia Wesleyan College, analyzed 52 depictions of the meal the Wansinks call “history’s most famous dinner party” painted between the year 1000 and the year 2000.

Using the size of the diners’ heads as a basis for comparison, the Wansinks used computers to compare the sizes of the plates in front of the apostles, the food servings on those plates and the bread on the table. Assuming that heads did not increase in size during the second millennium after the birth of Christ, the researchers used this method to gauge how much serving sizes increased.

And increase they did.

Over the course of the millennium, the Wansinks found that the entrees depicted on the plates laid before Jesus’ followers grew by about 70%, and the bread by 23%.

As entree portions rose, so too did the size of the plates — by 65.6%.

*****
[Read the full; article at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-last-supper23-2010mar23,0,7531075.story]

India’s Exquisite Maharaja’s Express Train Service

By William Stolerman in Luxury Insider Magazine

Last Saturday the Maharaja’s Express made its maiden voyage, offering travellers in India the finest transport imaginable. At a minimum charge of $800 per person, per night – the quality of service is exceptional.

Promoter Thomas Thottathil said: “It’s travelling like royalty. You get treated like a king. That’s the whole idea.”

*****
[Read the full article at http://www.luxury-insider.com/Current_Affairs/post/2010/03/24/Exquisite-Maharajas-Express-Indian-Train-Service.aspx (via www.bornrich.org)]