My favorite sci-fi series, Farscape, may be making a return in a movie to be directed by Brian Henson! The screenplay is supposedly being written by Justin Monjo, and there’s no word on filming or release date…but I’m crossing my fingers that this becomes a reality! The movie will focus on the son of John and Aeryn.
There was a nice segment on CNN recently about how the media presents climate change as an issue that can be debated, and gives equal airtime to opposing views on an issue which is really about as settled as you can get in science. Check it out below.
I learned about something interesting today, the Voynich Manuscript, a 15th-century book that has so far gone untranslated (it’s not written in any known language). Some very minor recent progress has been made in a translation as detailed in this link, though it’s really only a vague starting point and we’re nowhere near understanding this book. This has raised the question of whether this book is all some elaborate hoax? While it’s certainly possible, a hoax of this magnitude (~240 pages!) is not considered very likely (carbon dating does give us the age of the vellum the manuscript is written on). The manuscript appears to be divided into six sections: human biology, herbs, astronomy, cosmology, recipes, and medicine.
You can viewed high resolution scans of all pages on Yale’s website. Browsing through the manuscript, I came across one image that seemed quite odd, from page 70r:
Does that look familiar to anyone else? It sure reminds me of a Coelacanth, a fish presumed extinct, known only by its fossil record until one was caught off South Africa in 1938:
It’s possible that these fish were known of in the fifteenth century and then forgotten, but these days it’s only found in the Indian Ocean and Indonesia…perhaps providing a clue into the author’s travels?
The Voynich manuscript is a neat mystery…and while I am excited about the prospect of it being someday translated, it’s almost better off in mystery form. You can read more about it over at Wikipedia.
When I first started getting serious about running again last spring, I used the RunKeeper app on my iPhone and, coupled with the app running on my Pebble smartwatch, was really liking it. The Pebble app allowed for basic start/stop functionality and stat display. Then, two things happened. First, I discovered Strava, a really cool running site that also offered their own iPhone app. More importantly though…it got cold! Living in Colorado, ‘nice’ weather for running this time of year is temperatures in the teens and sunshine. My limit is about 5 degrees…though that’s pushing it, it’s harder to breathe at that temperature. Most importantly, I’ve found that my iPhone’s battery just doesn’t last when it’s cold and also having to keep the GPS active…it wasn’t able to track my long runs (>5 miles).
Fortunately, the solution is pretty great! I picked up an inexpensive Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS-enabled sport watch (pictured here; $120 at Amazon). As far as sport watches go, it’s really basic, a true entry level model. However, I’ve found it perfect for my needs. The battery life is great (more on that later), it does a good job of tracking my runs and providing realtime stats. Synchronizing with the Strava website is easy after my runs via a USB cable. The only catch has been that battery life…it should last a long time in standby mode (3 weeks per Garmin), but I’ve found that if I don’t leave it plugged in to my computer to keep the battery top off, the actual battery level is a bit unpredictable when I head out for a run (it was out of juice one time after sitting less than a week). Minor inconvenience really but something to watch out for if you get one of these…just keep it plugged in to your computer when not in use and you’ll be fine. Battery life is supposed to be around 8 hours in active use, but my longest runs so far have been around 2.5 hours so I haven’t really pushed it. The best part is, since this is in constant contact with my skin, I expect the air temperature won’t have nearly as much impact on battery life as it did with my iPhone.
BPA is one of those chemicals that has caused a lot of fear in recent years…but also some uncertainty. More and more though, it sounds like nasty stuff that’s best avoided (if possible). A new study found a direct correlation between BPA consumption and the rate of cancer in mice (read more about the study here). We’re lagging behind the rest of the world on this issue (the FDA still allows it), and unfortunately, its replacement, BPS, is pretty much an unknown, it may or may not have issues of its own. So what can you do? The same thing you do if you want to eat healthy overall. Avoid prepared and processed foods. Buy fresh ingredients and cook your own meals. At least try to minimize your exposure to BPA. You can read more about BPA over at Wikipedia.
I don’t know why, but during these cold winter months, orange juice is on my mind a lot. Those thoughts lead back to the story of how the juice gets from orchard to your table…and I feel it’s high time I use this blog to spread the word.
My concern is with ready-to-pour orange juice that you’ll find in about any store. Do you really think that’s fresh squeezed, yet available that way 365 days a year? Forget the labeling. It’s processed food like any other. The deal is, the oranges are harvested and squeezed, then stored in giant vats until it’s ready to be bottled and shipped. However, fresh squeezed orange juice goes bad quickly. So, the oxygen is pumped out of those tanks. Sadly, this also eliminates most of the flavor. Thus, when it’s time to bottle and ship the juice, chemicals are added to add flavor. Since these chemicals are derived from naturally occurring compounds in oranges, they aren’t considered artificial flavoring…so the labeling doesn’t draw attention to this fact.
If you want to avoid this artificial flavoring (“flavor packs”, it’s called), buy organic. There’s a great chart that shows which orange juices do and do not use these flavor packs, over at Toxinless (short summary: if you’re not buying organic juice, you’re not buying 100% natural, real juice).
How do you avoid this? Well I’m pretty sure that if you just buy frozen orange juice concentrate, it will have skipped this flavoring step. I’m just not 100% certain of that, it’s tough to verify as this isn’t exactly something the industry wants to talk about.
You can read more about this over at WikiPedia, or check out the book Squeezed for more. Follow this link for another good article on this subject.
The FDA has approved a retina implant, the Argus II, using a sheet of electrodes to partially restore vision. The restored vision is nowhere near perfect, it’s extremely basic, but does provide some level of pattern recognition (it only has 60 electrodes though, so you’re not going to be making out any detail). A camera on a pair of glasses captures the image which is them converted into signals transmitted to the retina implant. A more advanced design, the Alpha IMS (not yet FDA approved), allows users to make out mouth shapes (like smiles), large objects like cars or trees, thanks to its 1500 electrodes (vs. the Argus II’s 60). It also doesn’t require head-mounted glasses like the Argus II, but is still very much in the testing phase.
Frozen was a great kid’s movie…but combine one of its top songs “Let it Snow” with Star Trek The Next Generation and you get “Make it So”, a truly awesome parody video, check it out!
“Adrift” is an amazing time-lapse video by Simon Christen of fog around San Francisco. The way it flows over the hills is really cool, check it out.
Adrift from Simon Christen on Vimeo.
Timbuk2, perhaps better known for their awesome laptop bags,(I’ve used them for years and love them, very well made), has actually started selling a backpack for dogs. No, not one for your dog to wear…but a backpack to allow YOU to carry your dog! As a dog lover, this sounds completely ridiculous to me, but perhaps if I lived in a bit city I’d find the need to carry my dog rather than let him walk around? I don’t know. Although, my dog is rather large for that (he’s a beagle). If you feel this is something that you really, really need in your life, you can find it for $90 at Timbuk2’s product page here. Please reconsider though…dogs LOVE going for walks, smelling and peeing on everything, and trying to trip you with their leashes. Don’t deprive them of that!
Yes…I did consider that maybe this was some kind of a joke…but I learned about this via an email from them…and it’s nowhere near April 1st…so I think this might actually be a real product!
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