The Seven Deadliest Drinks

Posted on July 21, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

You’re not stupid. You know drinking isn’t good for you. But when is it really, really not good for you? We talked about the healthiest drinks last week. Today we’re looking at the darker, sugarier, fattier underbelly of drinking, and oh, what an underbelly it is.

It’s Friday afternoon, you’ve made it through the long week, and it’s time for Happy Hour, Gizmodo’s weekly booze column. A cocktail shaker full of innovation, science, and alcohol. Potato vodka + potato chips!

To help us determine the nastiest of the nasty, again we reached out to Maren Robinson, certified nutritional consultant (CNC) and master of public health (MPH). As a holistic nutritionist, she looks at a cocktail’s comprehensive health profile, or lack thereof, in this case.

via The Seven Deadliest Drinks.

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What First Got You Interested in Technology?

Posted on July 21, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

In our “What Was It” series, we’ve been talking with notable people about what first piqued their interest in technology.

People like Steve Wozniak and Alexis Ohanian have shared what pushed them into this field. Last night, at the American Museum of Natural History, Neil de Grasse Tyson told us what got him hooked on space exploration.

These recent discussions have been illuminating, and we’d like to hear more on the subject from our readers. So what did it for you? A trip to a planetarium? A high school science teacher? Tetris?

Image credit: Joahn Swanepoel/Shutterstock

via What First Got You Interested in Technology?.

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Scientists Invent Wonder Material That May Kill Tumors and Cure Diseases

Posted on July 20, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

Scientists have invented artificial pores as small as the ones in your cells—something unimaginable until now. These sub-nanometer synthetic pores are so tiny that they can distinguish between ions of different substances, just like a real cell.

It’s an amazing engineering feat. Once they tune them to detect different substances, researchers claim that this seemingly miraculous matter would be able to do truly incredible things, from “purifying water to kill tumors and diseases by regulating the substances inside of cells.”

The scientists used the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory to create the pores, gluing donut-shaped molecules—called rigid macrocycles—on top of each other using hydrogen bonding. According to one of the senior authors of the study, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Ameritas University’s chemistry professor Xiao Cheng Zeng—”this nanotube can be viewed as a stack of many, many rings. The rings come together through a process called self-assembly, and it’s very precise. It’s the first synthetic nanotube that has a very uniform diameter.” They are about 8.8 angstroms thick, just one tenth of a nanometer.

via Scientists Invent Wonder Material That May Kill Tumors and Cure Diseases.

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Four Times Its Okay to Break Up Via Text

Posted on July 20, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

Unprovoked nuclear attack. Incest. Cheating at Scrabble. Breaking up via text message. In the minds of many, that latter act is the greatest of all crimes—but is that fair? Is it ever justified to textually end things? Yes!A caveat, please: if youre in a relationship with someone you have or would call your boyfriend or girlfriend, it is not acceptable to break up over text message, email, IM, Twitter DM, Facebook status, or any other digital, virtual missive. Your relationship is likely ending in a more hurtful and poignant way that can ever be captured in typed words. Youll both be better off exposed to the quirks and nuances of IRL interaction.But there are a lot of relationships that arent serious. And in spite of the text-breakups stigma as the chickenshit way out, the medium has become the way we talk all the time. Were not calling each other, were texting each other. Is that watering down and generally cheapening the average human exchange? Maybe. Probably! But were living in an age when its OK to send a text to buy drugs, receive newborn baby photos, and blanket your friends and family with good news. So if its good enough for the good, surely its good enough for some of the bad. Here are the types of relationships you can press send to end:

via Four Times Its Okay to Break Up Via Text.

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Clog-Free Inkjet Printer Inspired by the Human Eye

Posted on July 19, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

Clog-Free Inkjet Printer Inspired by the Human Eye“The eye and an ink jet nozzle have a common problem: they must not be allowed to dry while, simultaneously, they must open,” explains Jae Wan Kwon, associate professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Missouri. Kwon, with the help of MU engineering doctoral student Riberet Almieda, solved the problem of the clogging inkjet printer by imitating the human eye’s own solution to dry exposure, a scientific approach known as biomimicry.

Inspired by the thin film of oil that the eyelid spreads over the layer of tears to keep them from evaporating, Kwon’s clog-preventing nozzle cover uses a a droplet of silicone oil to cover the opening of the nozzle when not in use. This droplet is moved in and out of place by an electrical field, as tiny eyelid-mimicking shutters at the small scale of the printer nozzle would be stuck in place by surface tension, unable to move as desired.

via Clog-Free Inkjet Printer Inspired by the Human Eye.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why the Original Star Trek’s Enterprise is the Best. Starship. Ever.

Posted on July 19, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

Acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was in attendance at the most recent Starship Smackdown—an anual end-of-Comic-Con tradition wherein a posse of high-profile in-the-know space nerds debate one another of the best starship of all time.

Tyson’s emphatic defense of the original Star Trek’s USS Enterprise is pure passion, pure conviction. Pretty great. [BadAssDigest via TNW]

via Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why the Original Star Trek’s Enterprise is the Best. Starship. Ever..

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Scientists Develop Nanoparticle Which Completely Destroys Hepatitis C

Posted on July 19, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

Hepatitis C now kills more Americans than HIV and, while there’s increasing progress towards finding a reliable vaccine, results can’t come soon enough. Now, researchers have developed a nanoparticle that effectively eradicates hepatitis C 100 percent of the time.

Researchers from the University of Florida have developed what they call a “nanozyme”. Based around gold nanoparticles, these things have their surface coated with two biological agents. One is an enzyme that attacks and kills the mRNA which allows hep C to replicate, while the other is a short string of DNA which identities the disease and sends the enzyme off to kill it.

via Scientists Develop Nanoparticle Which Completely Destroys Hepatitis C.

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Tiny Rooftop Turbine Could Make Urban Wind Farms A Reality

Posted on July 19, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

There’s a reason that wind farms are placed offshore rather than in urban areas—the turbines are typically huge, difficult to erect, and need a solid sustained gust to produce any meaningful amount of current. This prototype, on the other hand, will assemble easily and take up little space as it quietly produces kilowatts atop skyscrapers.

Conventional wind farms need wind that is both steady and strong but with very little turbulence. Their turbines are mounted atop 300-foot pylons to avoid the roiling currents at ground level and employ enormous blades to drive their MW generators. Everything operates on a grand scale with these farms, but they’re impractical in an urban environment.

via Tiny Rooftop Turbine Could Make Urban Wind Farms A Reality.

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Microsoft Just Lost Money For the First Time Ever

Posted on July 19, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

Microsoft just posted its fourth quarter results, and for the first time since the tech giant was founded, it lost money. But this isnt necessarly all doom and gloom the beginning of the end—not yet anyway.Microsoft hasnt had the best few years recently, but its business is so huge and its users so many that it has been able to keep turning profits despite Ballmers biggest blunders. The loss, according to the AP, was caused by an accounting adjustment. What does that mean? In 2007, Microsoft bought the advertising business, aQuantive. Turns out it was a bad deal, and in its fourth quarter balance sheets, Microsoft decreased the value of the company, pushing its numbers into the red for the quarter.These types of accounting shifts are common, its just particularly shocking because Microsoft is such a powerhouse. Luckily, things have been looking up for the company recently between the forthcoming releases of Windows 8 and the recently announced Microsoft Surface PCs. Lets hope Redmond can turn this temporary frown upside down. [AP via MSNBC]

via Microsoft Just Lost Money For the First Time Ever.

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9 Ways to Cut Your Smartphone Data Bill

Posted on July 18, 2012 by StevenTorresRamos

As the average webpage/image/file on the internet has grown, most folks monthly allowance for mobile bandwidth has gotten smaller. Exceptions: Sprint users and those grandfathered into an unlimited plan. Today, its extremely easy to use a gigabyte of data in a month. The quantity will just keep rising—and with it, the potential for massive monthly bills.So what are the best ways to put the brakes on the neediest data hogs? Here are the nine most effective changes you can make to get the of your daily data usage.

via 9 Ways to Cut Your Smartphone Data Bill.

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