Amanita mushrooms -- like all creatures -- rot, but most of them can't rot other things.
The fact that they don't rot other things is not news ...
The Amanita family also includes some of the best-known tree-partnering fungi on Earth. Many of the mushrooms in this family are mycorrhizae — fungi that coil themselves in and around the roots of trees.
The tree provides them with food it makes topside in return for a vastly improved underground absorptive network. This network, made by the many searching filaments of the fungus, brings much more water and many more minerals to the tree than it would otherwise be able to procure for itself.
The ability to distribute real-time information through social networks like Twitter is a powerful thing, but a new study points out that one of the downsides of this phenomenon is the fact that much of the content that gets linked to eventually...
One of the characteristics of the modern media age — at least for anyone who uses the web and social media a lot — is that we are surrounded by vast clouds of rapidly changing information, whether it’s blog posts or news stories or Twitter and Facebook updates. That’s great if you like real-time content, but there is a not-so-hidden flaw — namely, that you can’t step into the same stream twice, as Heraclitus put it. In other words, much of that information may (and probably will) disappear as new information replaces it, and small pieces of history wind up getting lost. According to a recent study, which looked at links shared through Twitter about news events like the Arab Spring revolutions in the Middle East, this could be turning into a substantial problem.
The dinosaurs of our childhood aren’t around anymore.
Of course, not everyone agrees. Some people would rather go back to the days before 1996—when Sinosauropteryx, the first fluffy dinosaur, was announced—to a world of naked dinosaurs. If you’re one of those people who loathe dinosaur feathers, there’s a group that will commiserate with you: creationists.
Creationists are on a campaign to “take dinosaurs back.” Earlier this year, the creationist crackpot Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis—the organization that established the fundamentalist funhouse called the Creation Museum—said, “Dinosaurs have been held hostage for decades” by his mortal enemy, the nefarious “secular humanists.” Ham is determined to appropriate dinosaurs for biblical literalists. (The organization’s website even sells a “We’re taking dinosaurs back!” bumper sticker.)
This isn’t about science. It’s about marketing. Ham is sore that natural history museums—many of which actually run research programs and contribute new facts and hypotheses to our understanding of prehistoric life, unlike the Creation Museum—use dinosaurs to help visitors learn about the evolution of what Charles Darwin called “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful.” Why should people who accept natural selection and geologic time have all the fun? Creationists, in Ham’s view, should use dinosaurs as star attractions to get the public to imbibe the religious swill he and his organization peddle.
Dinosaurs are unlikely symbols of religious fundamentalism. The first dinosaurs evolved about 230 million years ago, and, with the exception of birds, perished about 66 million years ago. Archaic humans didn’t originate until 60 million years later, so it’s not surprising that Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and kin aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Of course, Ham and like-minded literalists would beg to differ. Non-avian dinosaurs were created on Day 6 of creation week 6,000 years ago, with birds being brought into existence on Day 5 (which is out of order with the fossil record). Creationists also fervently believe that Behemoth and Leviathan of the Old Testament were actually dinosaurs, all scientific and historical evidence to the contrary. I’ve never seen creationists propose that we lived in a Dinotopia per se, but a saddle-bearing dinosaur at the Creation Museum is meant not as a fanciful kiddy ride but as a historical reconstruction.
News out of France concerning Prehistoric cave drawings that were animated by torch-light is taking the art history world by storm, and has overwhelmed this artist to the point of awe.
The cave drawings were found by archaeologist Marc Azema and French artist Florent Rivere, who suggest that Paleolithic artists who lived as long as 30,000 years ago used animation effects on cave walls, which explains the multiple heads and limbs on animals in the drawings. The images look superimposed until flickering torch-light is passed over them, giving them movement and creating a brief animation.
(Credit: USAF) The U.S.Air Force just released today a jaw-droppingly impressive, fast-paced video on accelerating change, Welcome to 2035...the Age of...
The U.S. Air Force just released today a jaw-droppingly impressive, fast-paced video on accelerating change, “Welcome to 2035…the Age of Surprise” (see video below).
Produced by the U.S. Air Force Center for Strategy and Technology at The Air University, the video was based on Blue Horizons, a multi-year future study being conducted for the Air Force Chief of Staff, a “meta-strategy for the age of surprise.”
“We can predict broad outlines, but we don’t know the ramifications,” the video says. “Information travels everywhere; anyone can access everything — the collective intelligence of humanity drives innovation in every direction while enabling new threats from super-empowered individuals with new domains, interconnecting faster than ever before. Unlimited combinations create unforeseen consequences.”
The latest developments at the "Eagleworks" super-advanced space drive lab at NASA's Johnson Space Center were outlined by NASA physicist Harold White at a conference on Friday. The Eagleworks lab was set up at the end of last year to look into such concepts as the Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster and also so-called "warp drives" along the lines proposed by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in the 1990s.
Quantum thrusters are fiendish kit indeed, but would be mainly of use for explorations within our own solar system. As most Reg readers are well aware, however, this is a rather limited canvas for humanity to work on for eternity: especially as it seems likely that there may be some rather more hospitable alien worlds to be found orbiting other suns.
A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.
HOUSTON — A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's "Star Trek" — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.
A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, however subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.
With the backing of Gates and Google, Khan Academy and its free online educational videos are moving into the classroom and across the world. Their goal: to ...
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine thats MDMA, the drug used illicitly as ecstasy was first created completely by accident in 1912. Its initial foray into the...
The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, ...
Take the subway to an otherwise undistinguished part of Third Avenue in Brooklyn. Knock on the door. Wait for some stylishly disheveled young man to open it and let you in. You’ve arrived at the BotCave—the place where 125 factory workers are creating the future of manufacturing.
The BotCave is home to MakerBot, a company that for nearly four years has been bringing affordable 3-D printers to the masses. But nothing MakerBot has ever built looks like the new printer these workers are currently constructing. The Replicator 2 isn’t a kit; it doesn’t require a weekend of wrestling with software that makes Linux look easy. Instead, it’s driven by a simple desktop application, and it will allow you to turn CAD files into physical things as easily as printing a photo. The entry-level Replicator 2, priced at $2,199, is for generating objects up to 11 by 6 inches in an ecofriendly material; the higher-end Replicator 2X, which costs $2,799, can produce only smaller items, up to 9 by 6 inches, but it has dual heads that let it print more sophisticated objects. With these two machines, MakerBot is putting down a multimillion-dollar wager that 3-D printing has hit its mainstream moment.
Unlike the jerry-built contraptions of the past, the Replicator 2s are sleek, metal, and stylish: MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis likens the design to “Darth Vader driving Knight Rider’s KITT car while being airlifted by a Nighthawk spy plane.” There is also the lighting. Oh, the lighting. “LEDs are part of our core values as a company,” Pettis jokes. The new machine will glow in any hue—”to match the color of your couch,” he says, “or like something in the movie Tron.”
MakerBot will open a 3-D printing shop on Sept. 20 in New York City. Inside, a new breed of machines prints out designs from the web
If the new business proves successful, 3-D printing stands to expand from a relatively high-cost hobbyist venture into a mainstream consumer market.
"This is the first retail 3-D printing store" in the United States, said spokesperson Jenny Lawton from inside the shop. "We haven't combed the world over, but we're pretty sure it's the first ... of its kind."
Using underwater cameras the team discovered the artist is a small puffer fish only a few inches in length that swims tirelessly through the day and night to create these vast organic sculptures using the gesture of a single fin. Through careful observation the team found the circles serve a variety of crucial ecological functions, the most important of which is to attract mates. Apparently the female fish are attracted to the hills and valleys within the sand and traverse them carefully to discover the male fish where the pair eventually lay eggs at the circle’s center, the grooves later acting as a natural buffer to ocean currents that protect the delicate offspring. Scientists also learned that the more ridges contained within the sculpture resulted in a much greater likelihood of the fish pairing.
To learn more about the circles check out the full scoop over on Spoon and Tamago, and you can see two high resolution desktop photos courtesy of NHK here. If we’re still making discoveries this significant in 2012, it really makes you wonder what else is down there. Just 95% more to go.
Between Windows 8 and Windows Phone; Xbox 360 and Kinect; the Surface tablet and new versions of Office, Outlook, and Internet Explorer, you may have noticed that Microsoft, a traditionally engineering-centric company, is undergoing a design... Microsoft’s top leaders have started to understand the value of design, however, but mainly because Apple has showed that good design is good business. Apple’s iPad now generates more revenue than Windows does; iPhone sales alone eclipsed Microsoft’s total revenue of about $74 billion for the fiscal year ending in June. "Microsoft only cares about design to the degree that it’s going to help them sell products, and now great design is a requirement to move units," says a former senior-level Microsoft source who advised Ballmer. "I don’t think they would’ve started placing such an emphasis on design for the sake of being beautiful--like for this Jobsian attitude of having a personal passion for designing the most elegant products. Microsoft is all about the dollars: They’re placing an emphasis on design because the dollars sit there. They’re looking at Apple’s market cap."
Graham Lawton reports the highs, lows and psychedelic purple doors involved in taking MDMA while having his brain scanned...
I'm taking part in a groundbreaking study on MDMA, the drug commonly known as ecstasy. The research is run by David Nutt of Imperial College London, a former government adviser and one of the few UK researchers licensed to study class-A drugs.
His main aim is to discover what MDMA does to the human brain, something that, remarkably, has never been done before. A second goal is to study MDMA as a therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. The experiment is also being filmed for a Channel 4 documentary called Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial, which will be broadcast in the UK next week.
Over the next hour I ride ferocious surges of serotonin that balloon me higher and higher, while trying to focus on a series of tasks. The fMRI machine is going through its repertoire of rackets – rhythmic clankings, throaty roars and what sounds like organ music. At times I feel amazing, at others panicky. Keeping my head still is very, very hard. But I ride it out.
When I'm pulled out 90 minutes later, the drug effects have plateaued. My mind is clear, my movement feels smooth and, aside from some jaw clenching, I feel content and sociable. And surprisingly psychedelic: a purple door is throbbing before my eyes.
I perform psychological tests, but my heart isn't in it. I'm more interested in chatting to the psychologists, doctors, nurses and porters. Finally I head home, and wake up the following day feeling pretty good.
Symptoms
If your computer won't start up normally, you may need to use a disk repair utility to fix the issue. Mac OS X includes two utilities for this—Disk Utility and fsck (a command-line utility). You can also use these even when your computer starts just fine but you want to check the disk for possible file system issues. For Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later, check out "About live verification in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later," below.
Important: If you're using Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you should use Disk Utility instead of fsck, whenever possible.
In some situations, file system errors may prevent your computer from starting up. This can occur after an improper shutdown, forced restart, or power interruption. If your computer shows any of the following symptoms on startup, use a disk repair utility:
Your computer partially starts but then displays a command line in a text-only environment. You may see the message, "file system dirty, run fsck." Below it, you'll see what's called a command-line prompt, indicated by a number sign (#), that allows you to type a command. If you see this, you'll need to run fsck from the command line (see "Use fsck if necessary," below). Your computer starts but either it won't reach the login screen, or it may reach the login screen but not load the Desktop after you log in. However, you can start up in single-user mode.
If your computer exhibits either of the above issues, here are some things to try to get your computer back to starting up properly again. If you can't start from the Recovery System or Internet Recovery in OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, or you can't find the system discs that came with your computer, see "Use fsck," below.
Resolution Try a Safe Boot
If you're using Mac OS X 10.2 or later, you can start up your computer in Safe Mode, which includes an automatic disk check and repair. If you're using Mac OS X 10.1.5 or earlier, skip to the next section. A Safe Boot, which starts up your computer into Safe Mode, may allow you to start up your computer successfully using a reduced version of the system software. To do this, follow these steps:
Start up in Safe Mode. After the system has fully started up, restart your computer again normally.
If the computer successfully restarts, you do not need to do any more troubleshooting. If the issue persists, try Disk Utility.
Try Disk Utility Start from the Recovery System or Internet Recovery (OS X Lion or Mountain Lion). If your computer shipped with a Mac OS X Install disc, insert the installation disc, and restart the computer while holding the C key. If using a Recovery partition or Internet Recovery (OS X Lion and later): When your computer finishes starting up, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities window. If using an installation disc: Choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. Important: If you started from an installation disc, do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must start from the disc again to access Disk Utility. Click the First Aid tab. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions. Select your OS X volume. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
Tip: With Mac OS X v10.6 and earlier, always start up your computer from an Install or Restore disc when using Disk Utility to verify or repair your startup volume. Otherwise, you might see some disk error messages.
Writersofthefuture.com is the official web site of the Writers of the Future and Illustrators of the Future Contest.
GREGORY BENFORD
YOUR FUTURE AND WELCOME TO IT
… 25 years from now.
World population stands at nearly 8 billion.
The Dow-Jones Industrial Average stands at 8,400, but the dollar is worth a third of today's.
Oil is running out, but shale-extracted oil is getting cheaper. The real shortage in much of the world is…water.
Most Americans are barely literate, think in images rather than symbols, and think the future is something that will happen to somebody else…just as today…
The outer-directed, social-issues consciousness of the USA, only nascent in 1987, will have peaked and run its course…leading to a fresh period of inward-directed values, perhaps even indulgence…though there will be less ability to indulge.
The French will still like odd Americans, unhonored in their own land (like the comedian Jerry Lewis), and will have just produced another desiccating critical theory of literature. Their food will be the same, too.
Berkeley, California will have a theme park devoted to its high period—the 1960s.
Bases on the moon, an expedition to Mars…all done. But the big news will be some problematical evidence for intelligent life elsewhere.
In science, the Icks (physics, mathematics) will be eclipsed by the Ologies (biology, psychology, ecology…).
There will have been major "diebacks" in overcrowded Third World countries, all across southern Asia and through Africa. This will be a major effect keeping population from reaching 10 billion.
The Crazy Years surrounding the turn of the century will have petered out, millennialfaiths will be boring again, and the attitudes expressed in this collection of predictions will seem very outmoded and "twen-cen."
I will be old, but not dead. Come by to see me, and bring a bottle.
Launched in 2001, KurzweilAI explores the forecasts and insights on accelerating change articulated in Ray Kurzweil’s landmark books — notably The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity Is Near — and updates these books with key...
The Internet Archive plans to make more than 350,000 programs available on its Web site beginning Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, the archive’s online collection will include every morsel of news produced in the last three years by 20 different channels, encompassing more than 1,000 news series that have generated more than 350,000 separate programs devoted to news.
The latest ambitious effort by the archive, which has already digitized millions of books and tried to collect everything published on every Web page for the last 15 years (that adds up to more than 150 billion Web pages), is intended not only for researchers, Mr. Kahle said, but also for average citizens who make up some of the site’s estimated two million visitors each day. “The focus is to help the American voter to better be able to examine candidates and issues,” Mr. Kahle said. “If you want to know exactly what Mitt Romney said about health care in 2009, you’ll be able to find it.”
Tech reporting is hard. So many new products, so many features; who can keep track of them all?
Unfortunately, that video clip is the work of Aatma Studio; it's a year-old concept video, showing an obviously misshapen iPhone 5 and several hypothetical new things it could do. (The studio's current concept clip is a winner, including the Rubberband Electronics killer feature.) Seems like the fact-checking squad is out of the office today -- they might have pointed the editor to an actual Apple video of the phone, for instance.
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