The Zombie Apocalyptic Safe House (are you prepared?)

Have you seen this? How cool is it? This is apparently the Vagabond, a mobile shelter designed by Austen Fleming, winner of Bustler's annual Zombie Apocalypse Safe House competition. Based on the shell of an armadillo, it has reflective camouflage on the outside which is designed to allow it to blend in with the environment, and photovoltaic cells that can provide heat, boil water, and charge electronic devices. It's said to also have a wind-powered ventilator, a water filtration system, and an iPhone compatible tracking device. It can fold up, slinky style so that you can carry it like a backpack!


I'd have to wonder how thick of a shell it is. Surely a zombie could break through it? Either way, it's a very cool concept.

A Sandbox I Wish I had as a Kid

When I think about the XBox Kinect, I think about gaming and hours lost in another world. However these days, it is being used as a tool in medical imaging, robotics, and even aids for the visually impaired. When I saw this image on Pinterest, I wasn't quite sure what this was all about, but the more I read on it, the more impressed I became. And can you imagine the muse crack? All of these uses are no longer a thing of sci-fi. They're becoming reality.

So what is this picture all about? Well, it's a sandbox, or what is being called the SandyStation. this realistic ecosystem was created by two students (Peter Altman and Robert Eckstein) in the Czech Republic. Using a Kinect, a data projector, a program of their own design and an ordinary box of sand, they can create stunning geographical models. Prepping the Kinect above the sandbox, it monitors the varying heights and depths of the area and then relays the information through a program to the projector. The projector then displays the topographical information on top of the sandbox in different colours that represent different heights or depths (i.e. dark blues for water, greens for hills, etc). Not only that but it can respond to any immediate changes as well! So if you decide you want a river and start to dig in the sand, you can water the "water" flow into the new channel.

Check out the lava when he digs a hole in the hill! Apparently if it mixes with the water it looks like it "extinguishes". Very cool.

Who You Gonna Call? (not the Ghostbusters)

A little known fact about me: I love ghost hunting shows. There's something about the unknown and maybe finding proof that there is life beyond death that appeals. I'm someone who need answers. I want to know what makes something tick, to dissect the working. So when I watch these ghost hunting shows, I'm always a bit intrigued by the various pieces of "evidence". I'll admit, most of the time, watching those shows, I'm left feeling disappointed because I expect MORE to come from it. Silly of course, but I want a more clear defined...yes there is or no there isn't.

However, sometimes there ARE scientific explanations for what's going on. It's pretty easy to conclude first off that a place that is 'haunted' is going to have more witnesses, more people who say something's going on. It's the lemming effect. If something happens that you can't explain and you've heard stories that something's not quite right, well then you're going to start to believe it and you're going to follow suite and say that what you experienced was paranormal.

Ever wake up unable to move? You might want to say that a ghost is holding you down or whatever, but there are other explanations for this paralysis that doesn't have to be paranormal such as sleep paralysis or hynagogic trance. It's said that most people experience a hypnagogic trance once or twice in their lives, although it is far more common in people with epilepsy or suffer from certain sleep disorders.

Most of the time, however, those who claim to have a ghostly encounter were awake. So then we have to look to other explanations. Some paranormal investigators think that the presence of stronger than normal electronic magnetic fields (EM fields) may be an indication of something supernatural. These fields may come from electronic equipment or geological formations. You'll often see investigators carrying around an EM reader. The first step when finding stronger than normal readings would be to make sure that what you're reading isn't coming from something electronic. Researchers believe that these EM fields can interact with the brain, causing hallucinations, dizziness or other neurological symptoms. They theorize that this is one of the reasons people report more ghostly activity at night, because of the way solar wind interacts with the Earth's magnetosphere. Electrical stimulation, for instance, to the angular gyrus of the brain can cause the sensation of someone behind you mimicking your movements. In other parts of the brain, it can cause people to hallucinate or have near death experiences.


All right but if it's just an effect on the brain, what about the cold spots? Those are physical symptoms. Cold spots are a common phenomenon in buildings believed to be haunted. Usually it's described as sudden drops in temperature or localized cold areas in an otherwise warm room, thought to be from the ghost drawing the energy out of the room. Often, however, these can be traced back to specific sources such as a drafty window or a chimney.

There may be one other thing playing tricks on you. Infrasound (an extremely low frequency between .1 -20Hz). At these levels, humans can't hear it, but we can FEEL it. It's believed that a good portion of the population is thought to be hypersensitive to these low frequencies-- causing nausea, extreme fear or awe, anxiety and chills. Researchers also believe it can affect vision by causing vibrations of the eye, making you 'see' things. Infrasound can be produced by storms, strong seasonal winds, weather patterns and some earthquakes.

In 1998, the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research published a paper called ‘The Ghost in the Machine’ by Vic Tandy. It described Tandy’s experiences with infrasound in his lab. While doing some experiments, his coworkers complained of various unknown 'spooky' feelings and chills in his lab. One woman even was said to have seen something. While working late at night, Tandy claimed to have had the feeling of being watched and catching the figure of something at the edge of his vision, but when he turned, there was nothing. When he brought in a fencing foil to repair, it started to vibrate. As he moved the blade around the room, it began to vibrate more strongly in the centre of the lab and at the edge of the room, stopped. He discovered that there was a 19Hz standing wave in his lab and that the walls had caused the sound waves to double back on itself, producing an area with enough energy to vibrate the blade. The source of this wave was a newly installed fan. When turned off, all phenomena associated with it stopped.

There are many natural reasons for paranormal activity if you know about it and where to look. What others can you think of?

Next Stage in Human Evolution?

Remember the shapeshifter on Supernatural? Shapeshifters are individuals who their form so that they appear as something else--whether it's a living or dead person, or animal form. In the entertainment world, most are shown able to shift within their own skin, without losing their clothes, while in lore shapeshifting can speak of the individual having to shed their skin, nails, teeth...everything before transforming. If you watch Supernatural, they've had quite a few episodes featuring these paranormal beings, including a shapeshifter that took on the form of Dean. One way to distinguish who is one and who isn't (according to Supernatural) is a retinal flare that shows up when they are filmed.

Made up, right?

Meet Nong Yongsui. Okay granted, probably not a shapeshifter, but this young boy is unique. What's different about him isn't his blue eyes but the fact that:

“In the dark Nong’s eyes would emit a kind of blue-green light when shone upon by a flash light — his eyes were just like cat eyes.”

It's said that he has been born with night vision. It's said that his vision can be blurred during daylight when the sun is bright, but at night, he can do anything without needing a flashlight, even answer questions handed to him in the dark or catch crickets. Night vision happens in nocturnal animals by a thin layer of cells called the tapetum lucidum. This layer creates a retroreflector, meaning that when light hits the tapetum, it's reflected back.

No matter what you think, it's pretty cool if it's real. What do you think is going on with this boy? Do you believe something's changing our evolutionary path?

If Atlantis was a Resort

Underwater hotel in Dubai.

When I think about Atlantis, I think of these following images and how cool it'd be if it was found today. If it was turned into a resort/or even just a hotel, I think it'd look similar to those in these pictures. And how cool would that be?
 
Atlantis was a legendary island mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC. He wrote about the naval power, located in front of the Pillars of Hercules, conquering many parts of Western Europe and Africa. Then in a single day and night, the island sank into the ocean.

Scholars have disputed Plato's story and how much of it may have been inspired by older traditions. In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of Atlantis come from a visit to Egypt by an Athenian named Solon in the 6th century BC. There in Egypt Solon supposedly met a priest of Sais, who translated the history of Atlantis, recorded on papyri. There's some debate however that Plato could have drawn upon the Thera eruption and the Trojan War, or the destruction of Helike in 373 BC.

Nautilus Undersea Suite at The Poseidon Resort, Fiji

Many treasure hunters have sought the legendary civilization but to this day, it's location is still a mystery. There are some theories out there (not only of Santorini, Sardinia, Cyprus, the Azores, Thera & Crete, but also the Sahara, Malta, Bimini, South America, Antarctica, the Canarys, North Sea and the Middle East), but as of yet, no evidence has truly been found.

One of the latest theories is that a US-led research team believe they have found Atlantis off Spain, swamped by a tsunami. The team analyzed satellite imagery of a submerged city north of Cadiz, Spain and found what they believe is the ancient civilization. They found a series of "memorial cities", built in Atlantis' image, possibly built by refugees after the city's destruction.

Using Plato's accounts of Atlantis being in front of the straits of the Pillar of Hercules, the researchers focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as possible sites.

Whether they did find it or not, more investigations need to be done. Do you think Atlantis will ever be found? Or do you think it was just a made up story? What are some of your favourite aspects of the tale of the ancient Atlanteans and their mysterious world?

First step at Star Trek's Replicator

I would be the first to admit that having a replicator like that on Star Trek would be awesome. Can you just imagine? You wouldn't have to cook or bake (yes, there's freezer already made meals and delivery, but that still takes time). All you'd have to do is press on the button for what you want and voila, instant meal delivered straight to you. Granted, right now, it'd probably taste like cardboard but still.


One of the coolest things in development right now (there are some already out there and have been for the last decade), is 3D printing. So you'd take a 3D image on the computer and send it to this device and it'd 'print' it in 3D before your eyes like magic. The ones that are available right now apparently cost over $15,000, mostly used by companies (automotive, aerospace, footwear, jewelery), that need to develop a 3D version of their product out of plastics and other material.


It's even foreseen that in the future, 3D printing will reproduce replacement organs. Currently, tissues such as skin, muscles and short stretches of blood vessels can be made. Even bones have been printed. With more research, however, it should be possible to create bigger and more complex body parts. These printers work by depositing droplets of polymer which fuse together to form a structure. Voids in the structure and complex shapes are supported by printing a scaffold of water-soluble material and then once the product is complete, the scaffold is washed away. Researchers found that when small clusters of cells are placed next to each other, they fuse together and organize themselves. Various techniques are also being explored to condition the cells to mature into functioning body parts (for example, exercising muscles using small machines).


Though printing organs is new, growing them from scratch on scaffolds has already been done in 2006 in which new bladders were created for some patients and are still working. Some researchers think machines like this may one day be capable of printing tissues and organs directly into the body.

This, as far as I'm concerned, is the tip of the iceberg. If they can already accomplish some of these things, anything can be done in the future with one of these printers. As an author, I see the musecrack there, but also, the marketing potential. What would you do with one?

How to pull of an art heist...or how scientists have created a time-masking cloak

In a popular comparison: an art heist takes place in a crowded museum--before your eyes and surveillance cameras. you don't see the thief, not even the actual taking of the painting. The opportunities would be staggering...and scary, but this is exactly what scientists at Cornell U are claiming to have done. Not the actual heist, but creating a time cloak that hid an event for 40 trillionths of a second.

While other invisibility cloaks created move light beams away from an object (like making an armored tank disappear or nanotubes creating a mirage), the Cornell team (backed by the Pentagon) found a way to alter how fast the light moves, changing the dimension in time, not space. By doing this, it makes it appear to the human eye or surveillance cameras (or even laser security beams) that an event isn't happening.

"You kind of create a hole in time where an event takes place," said study co-author Alexander Gaeta, director of Cornell's School of Applied and Engineering Physics. "You just don't know that anything ever happened."

This 'hole in time' is created using fiber optics as light moves inside a fiber thinner than a human hair. The scientists shoot the beam of light out. With other beams, they create a time lens that splits the light into two different speed beams that create the effect of invisibility by being too fast or too slow.

In the diagram a laser beam passes through a "split-time lens" - a specially designed waveguide that bumps up the wavelength for a while then suddenly bumps it down. The signal then passes through a filter that slows down the higher-wavelength part of the signal, creating a gap in which the cloaked event takes place. A second filter works in the opposite way from the first, letting the lower wavelength catch up, and a final split-time lens brings the beam back to the original wavelength, leaving no trace of what happened during the gap. (Image and Caption via Cornell University)

"It is significant because it opens up a whole new realm to ideas involving invisibility," McCall said

Click to watch a time cloaking simulation:



If you had such technology, what would you do with it?

Thursday 13: Round up of Science /Humanities links

1. World's tiniest steam engine built
2. God particle: why Cern scientists have been using the Large Hadron Collider to find it
3. What's your sound perfume?
4. Brain-controlled computer tracks attention
5. Big Question for 2012: The Great Pyramid Secret Doors
6. 'Matrix-style' learning implants new skills in brains
7. Ultrathin, foldable sensors probe secrets of the brain
8. Crusader's Arabic Inscription No Longer Lost in Translation
9. Students Preserve Revolutionary War Shipwrecks
10. Light Me Up, Buttercup
11. Ancient Fish Takes a Walk
12. Student Innovators Hack Kinetic and Cancer to Win $100,000
13. They guppy: newest top predator?

What would you like to see in 2012?

2012 is approaching so I thought I'd open up the floor to you guys. I'm going to be re-arranging a few things next year, but want to keep this spot open for paranormal and science things. I thought though that I would give you guys a say. What would you like to see in this paranormal/science spot in the coming new year? Anything in particular you'd like to see explained?

I'm going to leave you guys with a cool vampire hunting kit that was used in the approx 1890s. The kit includes: crucifix, stake, mallet, hatchet, German stamped letter to the mother of deceased victim, signed new testament bible by hunter Andrew Kauffman along with picture of victim, pliers, Remington derringer pistol, rosary, syringe, garlic extract, sulphur, hair from destroyed vampire, pulled fangs of destroyed vampire & holy oil.

Star Trek's Holodeck May Indeed Be in our Future

If you've watched Star Trek, you're probably aware of the holodeck. It's like one big simulated reality room where you can interact with "programmed world". It'd be like living in your tv and interacting with your favourite characters. You become part of that story. That world.

I'm not sure about you, but I've been waiting for the day when a holodeck-like virtual reality system was created. Just think what you could do...you could travel the world without ever having to leave your livingroom! Ok, I'd still want to go, but it'd still be pretty cool. It could be a very cool way for authors to learn about a new subject they're writing about.

Well a a holodeck may not be too far off. A couple of companies in Britain have started to work on something similar using a bunch of projectors, Sony Move controllers, and some creative visual tricks. What they do is project the images on the walls in a way to adjust to the geometry of the objects in the room (such as the couch in the video or the box), creating the illusion that the surface itself has changed. The controllers are attached to the camera and the position is fed back to the projectors in real time, allowing the projectors to adjust for the distortion of the image. This lets the camera move around, adding to the three-dimensional effect.

Sony Europe, Studio Output and Marshmallow Laser Feast shot three web videos to highlight the immersiveness of movies rented or purchased from the PlayStation Store. In the videos, all were made with just one take and no postproduction work. The effects look apparently nearly as good (and cheaper) and could even be used to replace the CGI technology used in the film industry that created Avatar.

Thursday 13: Round up of Science /Humanities links

1. What did Australopithecines sound like?
2. 'Twine' lets everyday objects speak to us
3. Stonehenge reveals new clues of ancient worship
4. 'Language gene' may influence learning too
5. To self-diagnose, spit on iPhone
6. Squidbot could limbo into dangerous places
7. Electronic contact lens displays pixels on eyes
8. Alzheimer's damage reversed by deep brain stimulation
9. Neutrinos and multiverses: a new cosmology beckons
10. One of the universe's fiercest black holes is hiding inside this galaxy
11. The world's oldest known heliocentric model is completely backwards
12. Why does going somewhere take longer than coming back
13. Why sleeping on a problem is best