We're Back: 100% More Boners

A new study, conducted on hamsters has discovered the one of the active ingredients in Viagra is helpful in stopping the problems that come about when travelling. Namely, jetlag. And this is just great, now we will have instead of thousands of weary travellers, we will have thousands of perky travellers all rocking massive Viagra-enhanced erections. Yikes.

Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, is known to inhibit the degradation of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), a messenger molecule that advances the body clock in response to light. So researchers assumed, Golombek says, that higher levels would increase the sensitivity of the circadian system and, in the process, "accelerate adaptation to a changing light schedule."

Their results, published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA: Hamsters given sildenafil (in concentrations of 3.5 parts per million in solution) adjusted to a six-hour change in their light-dark cycle (the equivalent of the time-change experienced by passengers traveling between New York City and Paris) in eight days; it took hamsters injected with saline solution 12 days to recover, as measured by what time they began their daily jog on running wheels in their cages. A larger dose of sildenafil sliced the adjustment time in half to six days, but also brought on penile erections, as the drug was approved to do.

I love you Science.
(via SciAm)Viagra May Give a Boost to the Jet-Lagged

Once Again, Ipods Are Not For Old People

A new study confirms that which we at CB HQ have known all along. Some people are just too old for iPods. This study says that people who have pacemakers and use iPods may be putting themselves at risk. The iPod causes interference with the pacemaker's ability to read the heart rates.

"Most pacemaker patients are not iPod users," Jongnarangsin says, adding that, for this reason, it is unclear how often iPods may cause misreadings of heart rates. "This needs to be studied more," Jongnarangsin adds.

Thaker says he is interested in doing a similar study about how another type of implantable device, called a cardioverter defibrillator (ICDs), may be affected by iPods.

If you are old and have a pacemaker, stick to the Walkman. It's for your health!

(via New Scientist) iPods may cause pacemakers to miss a beat

Yes, I Will Sell My Soul For a Freebee

In an interesting development in Japan (where they have all the cool stuff), vending machines will start to give out drinks for free(as in beer), but not as in free beer. If you get my drift. Watch the 30 second adverstiment, get a free drink. Watch the 30 second advertisment, get a free drink. Rinse. Repeat.

Thirsty Japanese will soon be able to drink coffee or other non-alcoholic beverages at a low price or even for free -- as long as they watch a 30-second advertisement on the vending machines.

Vending machine operator Apex Corp. will start a service next month to turn its machines into a new medium for advertisers, who will pick up the partial or full cost of drinks.

If only this worked on my TV at home. I watch a lot of commericals and I'm always thirsty. Genius!
(via the Khaleej Times)Watch ads and drink for free in Japan
(found on Engadget)

Information Technology To Be Used For Information

In a surprising turn of events this week, the scientific community has decided to use the internet (mankind's latest and greatest vehicle for the distribution of pornography) to compile a "Book of Life":

The Encyclopedia of Life project aims to detail all 1.8 million known plant and animal species in a net archive.

Individual species pages will include photographs, video, sound and maps, collected and written by experts.

The archive, to be built over 10 years, could help conservation efforts as well as being a useful tool for education.

Among other features, the archive will include a forum where users will be able to discuss the finer points of science, such as whether or not Lamarck's theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics was "teh gay," or how to keep the rare amur leopard from being "pwned by u homos." Speculation is tentative right now, but if the archive is successful enough, each species will have it's own myspace page, blog, and youtube highlight reel. Rawr.

Read the whole story here on BBC News Science/Nature

Don't Look At That Billboard!

It is looking back!
A new technology has been developed that allows cameras mounted on billboards or advertisments to see if people are looking at them. Hopefully, we won't progress to the Minority Report level of advertisments where the ad will talk back to us. But right now the ads record how many people have looked at it, allowing advertisers to pay per eyeball? Also, it allows the advertisment to do something if an eye loses interest, for example show "YOU ARE A WINNER!!!!!!" in a million colors so that it gives me a seizure to look at it.

The developers behind the technology – dubbed Eyebox2 – believe it could have a range of possible applications, but should particularly interest advertisers. This is because it allows billboards to track people's attention and perhaps respond when it wanes.
Until now, eye-tracking systems have only worked over about half a metre.
"It's less accurate than those systems, but it is good enough to let us know whether you are looking at a display or billboard or not," says lead developer Roel Vertegaal from Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.

I'm going to be the first in line to buy the sunglasses that block this kind of nonsense. Freedom!
(via New Scientist) Tracking billboards could give you the eyeball

If Only Gilligan Knew...

Locals in Papua New Guinea have finally done the impossible- used the coconut for something other than a novelty brazziere. Faced with the rising cost of gasoline, the intrepid islanders have begun brewing a coconut-based fuel in backyard refineries:

Matthias Horn, a German migrant and an engineer, operates one such refinery.

"They sometimes refer to me as the Mad German because how can you do that to your car... filling it with some coconut juice that you normally fry your fish in," he said.

Funny. I normally fry my fish in gasoline (unleaded, of course).

Read the whole story here on
BBC News Science/Nature

Mirror, Mirror In My House, What Purse Goes With This Blouse?

In an effort to get people to buy more shit that they don't need, a company has come up with mirrors that have RFID readers in them to read the RFID tags in clothes. These will mainly be in dressing rooms, so that the mirrors can tell you what some computer algorithm thinks will go great with that shirt.

Being demonstrated by the Paxar Corporation at the Material World show in Miami Beach, the magicmirror is intended to read the tags on clothing, and present the customer with accessories or coordinating items they might like to buy.

Being that I'm never in a dressing room, except save for a refridgerator-sized dressing room in Iceland, this does not effect me. However, I hope this technology doesn't get co-opted to overly flatter or overly tear apart our style choices. Also, and please no recording cameras in said mirror.
(via the Register) RFID mirror automatically insults your fashion sense

Sailing Not Just For Assholes Anymore

Sailing, a leisure activity once limited to waspy rich folk, is being touted as the newest and bestest option for exploring the cosmos. Finnish researchers have proposed a sail made of wire that will enable mankind to harness the power of plasma as we go yachting gracefully into the final frontier:

Results drawn from computer simulations indicate that in an average solar wind, a 440-pound spacecraft could achieve final speeds of up to 62 miles a second (or 1.9 billion miles a year), allowing a spacecraft to reach Pluto in less than five years.

Whether croquet, bocce, or badminton shall be played when the space sail finally docks is still the subject of hot debate. Either way, scientists are busy at work making khaki and pastel colored spacesuits for the flight.

Read the whole story here on Wired

Fibonacci's Flowers

In today's hectic world, rarely does one have time to stop and look at the flowers anymore. Regardless, an international consortium of mathematicians and botanists have finally cracked the code that lies at the heart of many a plant. As it turns out, the Fibonacci sequence has deeper roots than we all thought (pardon the pun):

Plants with spiral patterns related to the golden angle also display another curious mathematical property. The seeds of a flower head form interlocking spirals in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions. The number of clockwise spirals differs from the number of counterclockwise spirals, and these two numbers are called the plant's parastichy numbers (pronounced pi-RAS-tik-ee or PEHR-us-tik-ee).

These numbers have a remarkable consistency. They are almost always two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, which are another one of nature's mathematical favorites. The Fibonacci numbers form the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 . . . , in which each number is the sum of the previous two.

Read the whole story here on
ScienceNews.org

Code Words

Here at CB HQ, there are a few words that make our ears perk up like Pavlov's dogs at the sound of a bell. Those words are simple: nanites, Singularity, and anti-matter.
New information discovered by our world's intrepid scientists points to the fact that the BEST. SUPERNOVA. EVAR. was the result of anti-matter. They think this because the explosion showed so much more energy than the star held itself. To me, this smacks of "OMG! We can't see what caused this, it must have been. *gasp* ANTI-MATTER!". But, hey, they are the scientists, I'm just the dude that makes fun of them.

With 100 times the energy of a typical supernova explosion, SN 2006gy was simply too energetic to be explained by the explosion of a lightweight object like a white dwarf star, even if it were to collide with the core of a red giant, says team member Craig Wheeler of the University of Texas in Austin, US.

"That kind of explanation could not produce the energy we're seeing," he told New Scientist.

I don't mean to sound as skeptical as I do above, but as much as I love anti-matter, until I see it, I'm going to be skeptical. (Yes, I realize that you can't SEE anti-matter, but you get my point.)
(via New Scientist) Did antimatter 'factory' spark brightest supernova?