In a 2007 study, allergy researcher Hajime Kimata of Moriguchi-Keijinkai Hospital in Japan measured levels of the hormone melatonin in the breast milk of nursing mothers before and after the subjects watched either a comic Charlie Chaplin video or an ordinary weather report.
Melatonin regulates the sleep-wake cycle and is often disturbed in the allergic skin condition atopic eczema, which all of the 48 babies in the study had.
Kimata found that laughing at the funny film, but not hearing the weather report, increased the amount of melatonin in the mothers’ milk. In addition, the laughter-fortified breast milk reduced the allergic responses to latex and house dust mites in the infants. Thus, making a nursing mom laugh might sometimes serve as an allergy remedy for her baby. Laughter is even more important this month, because April is Humor month.
Apr 25, 2009
National Museum of Funeral History
Here is a place to go for a few chuckles. It’s motto “Any Day Above Ground is a Good One.” The Museum is in Houston and opened in 1992. You can view exhibits that include a Civil War embalming display and a replica of a turn-of-the-century casket factory.
It also has a collection of fantasy coffins designed by artist Kane Quaye. The collection includes a casket shaped like a chicken, a Mercedes-Benz, a shallot, and an outboard motor, all based on the dreams and last wishes of his clients. Sounds like a fun place.
It also has a collection of fantasy coffins designed by artist Kane Quaye. The collection includes a casket shaped like a chicken, a Mercedes-Benz, a shallot, and an outboard motor, all based on the dreams and last wishes of his clients. Sounds like a fun place.
Chocolate Sniff
A new way of eating chocolate - by breathing it.
Chocolate without the calories is yours if you inhale chocolate when Le Whif goes on sale later this month in four luscious flavors: mint chocolate, raspberry chocolate, mango chocolate, and plain chocolate. I'll have my coffee with a sniff.
Wallpaper TV
Coming to a wall near you.Many of us are accustomed to watching TV on high-quality flat screens, but now Toshiba has come up with a new solution. It is a flexible paper that doubles as a TV screen.
The paper uses light that has been redirected using a fine grating created by self-assembling nano-particles. In addition to projecting moving and still pictures, the paper could also be used to emit light, eliminating the need for traditional lighting.
I won't go into details of the cool OLED technology used, but the basic materials have been around since the 90s. Television wallpaper is currently in the early stages of research and won't be on your wall for quite sometime. Wow, I don't even have an HDTV yet and they are already on their way out. The speed of technology change is so exciting, I can hardly stand it.
Nanotube Radio
The nanotube radio, invented in 2007, performs a set of amazing feats: a single carbon nanotube tunes in a broadcast signal, amplifies it, converts it to an audio signal and then sends it to an external speaker in a form that the human ear can readily recognize. You can visit www.sciam.com/nanoradio and listen to a song.
Can you imagine hearing aids and cell phones small enough to fit completely within the ear canal. The nanoradio is actually small enough to fit inside a living cell. Wish they could invent a device of any size that did not have commercials.
Can you imagine hearing aids and cell phones small enough to fit completely within the ear canal. The nanoradio is actually small enough to fit inside a living cell. Wish they could invent a device of any size that did not have commercials.
Light a Picture
This is so ridiculous that I first thought it was an April Fool's joke, but it is not. A group at MIT proposed the idea of a matchstick embedded with a tiny camera and microphone (green half) and micro projector (red half).
A user swipes the red side of the match, physically lighting it on fire. This sets off the camera and microphone to start recording, moving down the length of the match in response to heat. The match stores the image and sound in the middle. When a user lights the other end, a mini projector plays back the video once before burning away (literally). The group has so far designed a prototype, based on two coupled matches synced to a computer webcam and playback program. A one-time recorder and playback might be a fun party trick and a fleeting reminder to appreciate moments, but it's still a stupid idea.
Stimulation
Can you say ten point five trillion and keep a straight face? Check this site for a detail breakdown of the money the government is spending. It scares the bejeebers out of me.
Slinky
Slinky was invented by Naval engineer Richard James, who knocked a spring off of a shelf when he was working to develop springs that could keep ship instruments stable in choppy waters.
The spring stepped down to a stack of books, then to the table, and then to the floor, where it righted itself into a cylinder. He tested it with neighborhood kids and the rest is history.
Speaking of Kid's Things
Did you know Terrell Owens, the football player, wrote a children's book titled "Little T Learns to Share", in which a young boy struggles with being fair and sharing his new football. In the end, he decides football is no fun when played all alone. Hmmm!
Apr 17, 2009
Speaking of Internet and TV
The BBC has launched a new service that allows viewers to watch live TV programs from suitable Wi-Fi connected mobile phones.
BBC Live TV is available in a beta test form, offering a limited number of the broadcaster’s channels, plus its radio stations.
BBC Live TV is available in a beta test form, offering a limited number of the broadcaster’s channels, plus its radio stations.
More Nano Stuff
As of August, 2008, the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies estimates that over 800 manufacturer-identified nanotech products are publicly available, with new ones hitting the market at a pace of 3-4 per week.
Current nano applications include:
Titanium dioxide - in sunscreen, cosmetics and some food products;
Carbon allotropes - used to produce gecko tape;
silver in food packaging, clothing, disinfectants, and household appliances;
zinc oxide - in sunscreens and cosmetics, surface coatings, paints, and outdoor furniture varnishes;
andcerium oxide - as a fuel catalyst.
PPG Industries produces SunClean self-cleaning glass, which harnesses the sun’s energy to break down dirt and spreads water smoothly over the surface to rinse the dirt away without beading or streaking.
Various sunscreens (Wild Child, Wet Dreams, and Bare Zone) incorporate ZinClear, a transparent suspension of nanoscopic zinc oxide particles that are too small to scatter visible light. Probably five years from now we will hear about some regulations being needed to make sure this stuff is really safe to use.
Current nano applications include:
Titanium dioxide - in sunscreen, cosmetics and some food products;
Carbon allotropes - used to produce gecko tape;
silver in food packaging, clothing, disinfectants, and household appliances;
zinc oxide - in sunscreens and cosmetics, surface coatings, paints, and outdoor furniture varnishes;
andcerium oxide - as a fuel catalyst.
PPG Industries produces SunClean self-cleaning glass, which harnesses the sun’s energy to break down dirt and spreads water smoothly over the surface to rinse the dirt away without beading or streaking.
Various sunscreens (Wild Child, Wet Dreams, and Bare Zone) incorporate ZinClear, a transparent suspension of nanoscopic zinc oxide particles that are too small to scatter visible light. Probably five years from now we will hear about some regulations being needed to make sure this stuff is really safe to use.
welcomed its 200 millionth user on April 8. Mark Zuckerberg, 24-year-old CEO, who created Facebook with two Harvard University roommates five years ago, announced the milestone in a post on the official Facebook blog.
He said, "We are working hard to build a service that everyone, everywhere can use, whether they are a person, a company, a president, or an organization working for change."
He said, "We are working hard to build a service that everyone, everywhere can use, whether they are a person, a company, a president, or an organization working for change."
Phones as Computers
As testament to the changing use of phones, consider the following. At North America's largest cell phone trade show in Las Vegas this month, there were only a few new phones for the US market that had a numeric keypad instead of an alphabetic keyboard. Touch screens also were out in force.
These changes are a recognition of the popularity of text messaging and wireless Internet use. Industry organization CTIA Wireless said US subscribers sent 1 trillion text messages in 2008 (three times the 2007 volume). Meanwhile, the same people used 2.2 trillion minutes of voice calls, an increase of less than 5 percent.
This shift in how people use their mobile devices has changed cell phone design to the point that 31 percent of phones sold in US in the fourth quarter of 2008 had full-alphabet keyboards, vs. 5 percent two years earlier. u me lunch, k?
These changes are a recognition of the popularity of text messaging and wireless Internet use. Industry organization CTIA Wireless said US subscribers sent 1 trillion text messages in 2008 (three times the 2007 volume). Meanwhile, the same people used 2.2 trillion minutes of voice calls, an increase of less than 5 percent.
This shift in how people use their mobile devices has changed cell phone design to the point that 31 percent of phones sold in US in the fourth quarter of 2008 had full-alphabet keyboards, vs. 5 percent two years earlier. u me lunch, k?
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