A new study has found the air in Madrid and Barcelona is also laced with at least five drugs – most prominently cocaine.
The Superior Council of Scientific Investigations, a government institute, said on its website that in addition to cocaine, it found trace amounts of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid -a relative of LSD – in air-quality control stations in the cities.
But it said there was no reason for alarm.
“Not even if we lived for a thousand years would we consume the equivalent of a dose of cocaine by breathing this air,” said one of its scientists, Miren Lopez de Alda, in the statement.
The scientific group added that “in no case should these levels be considered representative of the air in the two cities”.
In Madrid the test site was close to a ruined building believed to be frequented by drug dealers. And in both Madrid and Barcelona, the studies were carried out close to universities
Plain black and white codes aren’t enough for some people, they need style:
“QR Codes are the bar codes of the future, linking online and physical graphics to websites and multi-media. For the most part, the codes have still maintained an abstract look akin to their predecessors. A newly released designer QR symbol, produced by Tokyo based creative agency SET is looking to change all that with a stylized remake of the standard code. Mixing design with technological innovation, SET teamed up Takashi Murakami with Louis Vuitton to create a distinctive code featuring one of the artist’s characters and the classic LV pattern. The agency hopes this will add much needed style and character to the bland world of machine readable codes”
Of course there’s a focus on marketing and conversation as marketing to both the blog entry (and the book itself) but as much as I sometimes get grumpy in the presence of a marketing-based approach to communications, the same rules that help you sell yourself and your ideas to others can also create better and more stable lines of communication — maximizing the bandwith of your “Friend” connections on various social networks.
Also? I want “It’s 140 characters, not a debate club” on a goddamned t-shirt.
Win People to Your Way of Thinking
10.The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
11.Show respect for the other person’s opinion. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
12.If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
13.Begin in a friendly way.
14.Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
15.Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
16.Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
17.Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
18.Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
19.Appeal to the nobler motives.
20.Dramatize your ideas.
21.Throw down a challenge.
Actions to Win: LinkedIn & Facebook
Create a group to engage thought leaders, interesting parties. Ask their opinions.
If logic/position is not factual, ask them how they came to that position.
Don’t say they’re wrong, yet state your facts. Ask them what they think.
Socratic method is a great way to engage. Sometimes writing out logic in an online group helps expose and address weaknesses.
Admit & amend wrongs
Challenge people to come up with answers.
Acknowledge and seriously weigh responses on any of these issues.
In areas of conflicting opinion, ask people to find a compromise.
Give credit to anyone who contributes to ideas used.
Actions to Win on Twitter
Engage in a dialogue on meaningful issues.
Remember, Twitter is public. Let folks save face.
Admit and amend wrongs.
Don’t flame, rather ask and state your dialogue.
Give people an out. It’s 140 characters, not a debate club.
Look for the positive result, and celebrate it. Laud your conversation partners
The question of how a molecule capable of storing genetic information – even DNA’s simpler cousin RNA – could ever have arisen spontaneously in the primordial cooking pot has perplexed scientists for decades. RNA consists of a long chain composed of four different types of ribonucleotides, which each consist of a nitrogenous base, a sugar and a phosphate.
…To tackle this problem, John Sutherland from the University of Manchester, UK, tried to work out a new recipe for RNA that gets by without forcing isolated bases and sugar molecules to react. His team experimented by cooking up ribonucleotides from five small molecules thought to be present in the primordial soup. “We started with the same building blocks as others, but take a different route,” Sutherland says.
And this time the cooks seem to have got it right. The recipe and conditions that they came up with to mix the five ingredients – including a good blast of UV light – produce ribonucleotides via a joint precursor molecule that contains both the base and the sugar instead of making each in their free form (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature08013).
…”We don’t use any way-out scenarios – all the conditions are consistent with what we know about early Earth,” says Sutherland. William Scott, from the University of California in Santa Cruz agrees: “It’s a great leap forward that demonstrates how prebiotic RNA molecules may have assembled spontaneously from simple and presumably relatively abundant constituents.”
The need for UV light suggests life didn’t begin in a submarine vent, one possible scenario. Instead, it points towards a warm pond – an idea first mooted by Charles Darwin, who knew nothing of RNA.
Life Inc. exposes why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401k plans as the ultimate measure of success, and the Internet as just another place to do business.
Though there’s already some contention in the (forgive me) blogosphere about whether Rushkoff has all the answers here, there’s no doubt he’s asking a lot of the right questions.
The last part of this interview on Richard Metzger’s Dangerous Minds is particulary interesting, where he looks forward, beyond the current financial crisis:
The world’s first industrial robot clocked on in a General Motors factory in 1961 to weld auto bodies, following instructions stored on a magnetic drum.
It was designed by George Devol and Joseph Engelberger, who were inspired by science fiction.
“We are seizing control of our evolutionary future. We are using technology to jam evolution into fast forward, and it is not at all clear where it is gonna take us.”
“We are taking the sand at our feet, the silicone at our feet, and are breathing a level of complexity into it, that may even surpass us.”
“What is we could unravel aging? Begin to retard the process or even revert it? It would change absolutely everything and it is obvious to everyone that if we can do this we absolutely will do this, whatever the consequences are.”
“Modifying our emotions: Ritalin, Viagra, etc. These are just absolutely baby steps.”
“Who would want to pass on to their children the archaic enhancement modules that they got 25 years ago from their parents? It’s a joke! Of course they wouldn’t want to do that! They would want the new release!”
“Now not everything that can be done, should be done. And it won’t be done. But when something is feasible in thousands of laboratories around the world, which is going to be the case with these new technologies. When there are large numbers of people that see them as beneficial, which is already the case. And when they are almost impossible to police, it is not a matter of if this is gonna happen. It is when, and where and how it is gonna happen.”
“Humanity is going to go down this path… because we are human.”
“The lines are going to blur, between therapy and enhancement. Between treatment and prevention and between need and desire.”
“We should not kid ourselves and think we are going to reach a consensus about these things. That is not going to happen. They touch us too deeply and they depend too much upon history, upon philosophy, upon culture, upon politics. And some people are going to see this a an abomination, as the worst thing, as awful. And other people are going to say: This is great, this is the flowering of human endeavor.”
..building a meaningful relationship with a robot may soon get easier if Nikolaos Mavridis and pals from the Interactive Robots and Media Lab at the United Arab Emirates University have anything to do with it. They say the key to building a longer, meaningful relationship with a robot is to become embedded in the same network of shared friends and together build a pool of shared memories that you can both refer to. Just like a real friend.
So the team has created the world’s first robot that does both these things–it has its own Facebook page and it can use the information it gathers from this social network in conversations with “friends”.
…
They’re planning to implement their programme in a humanoid robot called IbnSina (see picture), that they have developed at their lab.
A city with an abandoned underground train line, one that cuts beneath some of the nicest townhouses in the city, develops an unexpected new real estate idea: renting out temporary basements in the form of repurposed subway cars.
Access stairs are cut down from each individual house till they connect up with the existing disused train tunnels below; each private residence thus becomes something like a subway station, with direct access, behind a locked door, to the subterranean infrastructure of the city far below.
Then, for a substantial fee – as much as $15,000 a month – you can rent a radically redesigned subway car, complete with closets, shelves, and in-floor storage cubes. The whole thing is parked beneath your house and braked in place; it has electricity and climate control, perhaps even WiFi. You can store summer clothes, golf equipment, tool boxes, children’s toys, and winter ski gear.
The calorie monitor, which is being developed by biotech incubator PhiloMetron, uses a combination of sensors, electrodes, and accelerometers that–together with a unique algorithm–measure the number of calories eaten, the number of calories burned, and the net gain or loss over a 24-hour period. The patch sends this data via a Bluetooth wireless connection to a dieter’s cell phone, where an application tracks the totals and provides support. “You missed your goal for today, but you can make it up tomorrow by taking a 15-minute walk or having a salad for dinner,” it might suggest.
All this in something “no bigger than a large Band-Aid”.
While inserting metal/ink/fabric/plastics/moon rocks into our skin and dangly parts makes for a striking and individual look, this development into the world of wearable science caters for those who like things a bit more natural…
epiSkin jewelry extends biological identity by combining technology and design into a new decorative body surface. This project is an exploration into the decorative technological control over biology to create an artifact which is a hybrid of both. Cultured in a lab, this biological jewelry is made of epithelia cells which grow to create an artificial skin. The cells are grown into custom designed forms, controlled by the artist. The cells are incubated for a period of time, following which they are stained with a custom dye. The skin is then visibly sealed into a wearable object. The process in creating these pieces includes human tissue culturing as well as computer generated form on which the cells are cultured and then transplanted into adaptive jewelry. The jewelry is worn on the body, completing the relationship of biological cells mediated by technology.
..building a meaningful relationship with a robot may soon get easier if Nikolaos Mavridis and pals from the Interactive Robots and Media Lab at the United Arab Emirates University have anything to do with it. They say the key to building a longer, meaningful relationship with a robot is to become embedded in the same network of shared friends and together build a pool of shared memories that you can both refer to. Just like a real friend.
The calorie monitor, which is being developed by biotech incubator 
