Yet Another Costly F-35 Glitch: Ejection Seat Could Kill Pilots
October 22nd, 2015Via: Fiscal Times:
The Defense Department’s multi-billion dollar F-35 Joint Strike Fighter effort has hit a new snag, and it’s one that could take anywhere from a year to 18 months to fix, according to the program’s chief.
Earlier this month Defense News reported the Pentagon had learned the fifth-generation airplane’s ejection seat could cause fatal whiplash for pilots weighing under 136, despite the fact that the seat was designed to handle any pilot weighing between 103 and 245 pounds.
The discovery prompted the Pentagon to restrict any pilot that weighs less than 136 pounds from flying the aircraft until a solution was found.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the head of the F-35 program office, told House lawmakers on Wednesday that officials are using “known fixes” to remedy the problem, though they’ll take some time to implement.
With a price tag of around $400 billion, the F-35 is the costliest weapon in U.S. history; the idea that the severely delayed procurement effort suffered another technical glitch on a support system many believed was safe set off alarm bells on Capitol Hill, even among the fighter’s supporters.
Flite Test Guys Build “Back to the Future” USA TODAY Drone
October 21st, 2015By the way, if you’re interested in r/c aircraft, or have children who are, Flite Test is fantastic.
Via: Flite Test:
Paralyzed Man’s Arm Wired to Receive Brain Signals
October 21st, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review:
Scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio say they’ve used electronics to get around a paralyzed man’s spinal injury, permitting him to use an implant in his brain to move his arm and hand.
The test represents the first time that signals collected in the brain have been conveyed directly to electrodes placed inside someone’s arm to restore movement, says Robert Kirsch, a biomedical engineer at Case Western. He also directs the Cleveland FES Center, which develops technologies for people with paralysis.
First Gene-Edited Dogs Reported in China
October 21st, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review:
Man’s best friend is now his newest genetic engineering project.
Scientists in China say they are the first to use gene editing to produce customized dogs. They created a beagle with double the amount of muscle mass by deleting a gene called myostatin.
The dogs have “more muscles and are expected to have stronger running ability, which is good for hunting, police (military) applications,” Liangxue Lai, a researcher with the Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, said in an e-mail.
Lai and 28 colleagues reported their results last week in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology, saying they intend to create dogs with other DNA mutations, including ones that mimic human diseases such as Parkinson’s and muscular dystrophy. “The goal of the research is to explore an approach to the generation of new disease dog models for biomedical research,” says Lai. “Dogs are very close to humans in terms of metabolic, physiological, and anatomical characteristics.”
Alabama: For Offenders Who Can’t Pay, It’s a Pint of Blood or Jail Time
October 21st, 2015Harvest time.
Via: New York Times:
Judge Marvin Wiggins’s courtroom was packed on a September morning. The docket listed hundreds of offenders who owed fines or fees for a wide variety of crimes — hunting after dark, assault, drug possession and passing bad checks among them.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” began Judge Wiggins, a circuit judge here in rural Alabama since 1999. “For your consideration, there’s a blood drive outside,” he continued, according to a recording of the hearing. “If you don’t have any money, go out there and give blood and bring in a receipt indicating you gave blood.”
For those who had no money or did not want to give blood, the judge concluded: “The sheriff has enough handcuffs.”
Efforts by courts and local governments to generate revenue by imposing fines for minor offenses, particularly from poor and working-class people, have attracted widespread attention and condemnation in recent months. But legal and health experts said they could not think of another modern example of a court all but ordering offenders to give blood in lieu of payment, or face jail time. They all agreed that it was improper.
New York City’s X-Ray Vans
October 20th, 2015Via: The Atlantic:
Dystopian truth is stranger than dystopian fiction.
In New York City, the police now maintain an unknown number of military-grade vans outfitted with X-ray radiation, enabling cops to look through the walls of buildings or the sides of trucks. The technology was used in Afghanistan before being loosed on U.S. streets. Each X-ray van costs an estimated $729,000 to $825,000.
The NYPD will not reveal when, where, or how often they are used.
“I will not talk about anything at all about this,” New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told a journalist for the New York Post who pressed for details on the vans. “It falls into the range of security and counter-terrorism activity that we engage in.”
He added that “they’re not used to scan people for weapons.”
Britain: “Submissions to Theresa May’s Child Sex Abuse Inquiry Accidentally Deleted”
October 20th, 2015Via: The Guardian:
Information provided by alleged child abuse victims to the overarching inquiry set up by Theresa May has been deleted due to a blunder, it has emerged.
Submissions sent through an online form to the inquiry between 14 September and 2 October were “instantly and permanently deleted” on Thursday before they reached staff.
The information had been sent to the “share your experience” section of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) website, set up for victims and survivors wanting to share their experiences with officials working on the probe.
Those who provided details between the two dates have now been asked to resubmit their information. The inquiry apologised for the incident and stressed that no material was at risk of disclosure.
In Nigeria, Solar-Powered Fridges at Outdoor Markets Save Food From Spoiling
October 20th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Via: Gizmodo:
In developing countries, an unbelievable 45% of food goes bad because of a lack of cold storage. It’s an especially big problem during transportation from farms to outdoor markets, where food sits in the scorching sun for hours on end. But one startup has a solution: solar-powered refrigeration stations that could save the livelihoods of half a billion farmers worldwide.
It’s called ColdHubs, and it’s a Nigerian-based company founded by entrepreneur and radio presenter Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, who’s a farmer himself. Here’s the problem he set out to solve: Almost half the post-harvest food in developing nations like Nigeria quickly spoil because there’s nothing to keep it refrigerated, and 470 million farmers in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America lose up to 25% of their annual income because of it. There is no cool storage at local community markets, where it’s 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This income loss affects 200 million farmers in Africa alone.
So Ikegwuonu turned to solar panels. His design is an easy-to-set-up, modular, walk-in cold room that provides “24/7 off-grid storage and preservation for perishable foods.” Freshness for these fruits and vegetables skyrockets from two days to 21 days, and local farmers’ post-harvest loss is cut by 80%.
Is the Retarded Trend of Men-Wearing-Women’s-Pants a Population Reduction Program?
October 19th, 2015For a few years, I’ve been baffled by the ridiculous trend of men wearing skinny jeans.
It’s easy to just shake your head and pass this off as yet another aspect of the zombie apocalypse. (In the town closest to me, they like to add a blown-out bluetooth speaker blaring rap music to the ensemble as they stroll down the sidewalk.)
After reading the piece below, I wonder if there’s more to it than just the seemingly pointless vagaries of fashion.
Via: Stuff:
For men trying to start a family, it’s time to lose the tight jeans – and sleep naked.
Underwear choice has a huge impact on a man’s sperm count and quality, according to research from Stanford University, the Daily Mail reports.
Their findings? Breezy boxer shorts keep reproductive cells alive, while sleeping in your birthday suit gives the best results.
Stanford scientists worked with the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development on a sample of 501 men who were trying to become fathers.
Those who wore boxer shorts during the day, rather than tighter briefs, and wore nothing at all to bed, had 25 per cent less damage to their sperm.
Katherine Sapra of the NICHD said there was an association between the type of underwear worn, and semen quality.
“Reducing exposure for bed decreases DNA fragmentation; better semen quality parameters are observed in men wearing boxers during the day and none to bed.”
Allan Pacey of Sheffield University agreed, saying heat was the factor at play.
“We have known for some time that men who increase the temperature of their testicles, either through the heat exposure at work or by wearing tight underwear, have poorer semen quality compared to men whose testicles are cooler,” he said.
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[???] “We Can Only Assume Gender-Specific Clothing Is On Its Way Out”
Emails Reveal Tony Blair’s “Deal In Blood” with George Bush Over Iraq War
October 19th, 2015Via: Daily Mail:
A bombshell White House memo has revealed for the first time details of the ‘deal in blood’ forged by Tony Blair and George Bush over the Iraq War.
The sensational leak shows that Blair had given an unqualified pledge to sign up to the conflict a year before the invasion started.
It flies in the face of the Prime Minister’s public claims at the time that he was seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
He told voters: ‘We’re not proposing military action’ – in direct contrast to what the secret email now reveals.
Research Credit: emulsified
