The 1st Question Blog

The First Question - 1 Jun 2010

2010-06-19T12:17:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

Selkit Diller, Josephine Junot, Metro Troglodite, Aeonix Aeon

Quotes

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.
-Og Mandino

There is no way to penetrate the surface of life but by attacking it earnestly at a particular point.
Charles Horton Cooley

Word-UP of the week –
“Keybagging” - Above and beyond mere typos, keybagging is to type incoherently with such bad grammar and spelling as to have implied typing via repeatedly squatting over the keyboard.
-Aeonix Aeon

Audience Quote of the week-
One nuclear weapon can ruin your whole day, but if it's on a friday or monday, THREE DAY WEEKEND! ROCK!
-Crap Mariner

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) WE have an algorithm for sarcasm, but that won’t tell you when someone is about to attack, only when someone is about to be snide. And you can’t really roll your eyes at someone and cause them instant death. Sarcasm is not yet a deadly weapon. Besides no one who works for a government agency is capable of sarcasm. So DARPA has a new program intended to dynamically forecast when deadly moles are deep within government departments will likely strike. Part of the challenge is detecting deceptive behavior that will lead to malicious intent. What is the name of this new DARPA Program to detect threat?

2) Its bad out there in the Louisiana gulf and there are many people working very hard to contain this spill - so are some microbes - over the past few years, researchers have found that dozens of different kinds of marine bacteria have a healthy appetite for oil. Water samples from the Gulf of Mexico are showing signs those populations of Vibrios bacteria in this area are likely to boom as they feast on the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The bacterial process will be helped if this is added to the water - as then the oil-eaters will have the nitrogen and phosphate they need to grow. What is it?

3) It's only when we measure the position of an electron that we force it to have a specific location. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Because according to this University you might also be standing up in Cincinnati. The strange discovery by quantum physicists means that an object you can see in front of you may exist simultaneously in a parallel universe –The experiment involving a "paddle" about the width of a human hair. And a vacuum, a vibration and a scientist - it moved and stood still at the same time. The multi-verse theory says the entire universe "freezes" during observation, and we see only one reality. We might be able to warp to parallel universes just by manipulating a few electrons. In which of these United States of Quantum mechanics is the alternate universe being debated?

4) There is an artificial heart, which can pump up to 9 and a half liters of blood, was powered by a 400-pound machine they call "Big Blue" because of its girth and color. The sheer size of that machine required hospitalization. In March,, the FDA granted conditional approval for a 13-pound version of the machine that does the same job —This compact version allows those with an artificial heart to go home is called what?

5) We now have artificial life derived from a computer, and we now have A British scientist who claims to be the first person infected with a computer virus. This man implanted himself with an RFID tag similar to the type used to identify animals, and then infected the tag with a computer virus. "So when we are implanting this type of device we are implanting a miniature computer... And will this computer virus slow down his metabolism and broadcast to neighbors the danger in viewing him without trousers on? Who is the man with the funky RFID tag?

6) We have prim butterflies scripted to gambol over our virtual hedge groves of flowers, and they are lovely, at least mine are – but what about in your very real garden? A robotic butterfly created by researchers in this country tests the idea that the flight of the swallowtail butterfly can be recreated. During the flights, the artificial butterfly followed an undulating flight trajectory like an actual swallowtail. In 1980 Roger Zalazny wrote about a mechanized park. In what country did we take a collective step towards this?

7) Outfitted with sophisticated sensors able to measure the brain-waves of the wearer: it can determine the fatigue level of that person and report on it to supervisory personnel, or your mother who will give you your blue blankie and tell you to go take a nap.. Invented by Australian mining engineer Dr. Daniel Bongers, this baseball cap can figure you out right through your hair. Trailed on Miners, it correlated data to real-time EEG and fatigue information Now you don’t need to yawn to signal you are tired, you need to wear this –what is it?.

8) Although Lindsay Lohan wrote Orwell on hers, one wonders if she has read any of his works. It doesn’t matter; this can read her perspiration like a book, monitoring it for alcohol. As alcohol is rapidly distributed throughout the body by the process of diffusion this reads it. And then transmits the data- even viewed graphically on a handy internet site provided by the manufacturer. What is Lindsay wearing these days that only comes in Speculum grey?

9) Beer, and its cousin, bread, were fundamental to the development of civilization. The basic machinery for grinding grain may have even contributed to the evolution of the wheel. Beer is the third most popular drink of all of the planet’s people, taking into account all cultures and geographies. Most of the world’s beer has between 4% and 6% Alcohol By Volume (ABV),.An escalation in the use of a relatively new methodology over the last 12 months has seen man's favorite beverage move into the 40+% ABV realm creating a new category of extreme beer. Men are competitive let’s face it and now the race is on to craft the world’s strongest beer, and break 50% alcohol by volume. The freezing point of alcohol is lower than the freezing point of water, so by lowering the temperature of the beer to between the two freezing points, it’s possible to remove the ice and hence remove the water, distilling or enriching the alcoholic content and the flavor of what remains. What is this method of beer production called?

10) Space Age just doesn’t cut it without weightlessness – of course if you drink enough beer weightlessness might become a preferable state – but if you Ever wanted to levitate a can or bottle inside an illuminated ring, now you can. To get your object levitation-ready just attach the included magnet to the top, plug in the base and place it within the glowing ring. You can probably suspend anything within 11 inch diameter and under 300g. The manufacturer only specifically mentions cans and bottles as levitation-worthy, but if you could find a way to attach the magnet to your Chihuahua you could probably levitate that too. Who manufactures this very interesting display for your nuclear beer cans?

11) Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS is a fatal disease caused by the degeneration of motor neurons: also called Lou Gehrig's Disease. LA graffiti writer Tony Quan was diagnosed with it in 2003, and like many other ALS patients, for instance, Stephen Hawking, was left almost completely physically paralyzed except for his eyes. It’s a low-cost, open source eye-tracking system that will allow artists with paralysis to draw using only their eyes used in combination with a computer. It recently won the Interactive Award at the celebrated Brit Insurance Design Awards. What is it called?

12) Not to be confused with the Scram around your ankle, Lindsay - The supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet’s goal is to create a free-flying vehicle capable of operating continuously on jet fuel and achieving continuous hypersonic speeds - it's recent flight smashes the previous record of 12 seconds – At 200 seconds it sets the foundation for several hypersonic applications, including access to space, reconnaissance, and commercial transportation- will it equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines. It was done with a Wave-rider from what company?

13) Think of all the interior monologues you have with yourself over your eating habits – now wouldn’t having them with a robot instead just improve your sense of dedication to your weight loss and diet cause? Of course it would! This is an area of personal robotics that seems to be expanding. Now we have a new conversational robot that provides feedback, advice, and encouragement to keep you motivated. And if that isn’t enough will help you rationalize that extra pat of butter – no I jest this robot is serious and controlled medical studies have shown a socially interactive robot will handle that peanut butter ice cream smack down better–than locking your freezer. She is constantly adapting to you to better understand what will help you stick with your diet and exercise program. Yes but can she dish out the guilt? What is her name?

14) This is the first that I know of that uses an independent camera controlled remotely via mobile phone. This clever pet monitoring system allows you to keep tabs on your pet remotely via your mobile phone, all in real time using a Japanese handset's 'TV call' function. If you want to snap a still photo, you can send an SMS to it – when pets start tracking their owners I think we have more to worry about – but what is this new way to show pictures of Fido around the office, when your friends start showing off the baby pictures?

15) This is an amazing device created as a mail promotion-. The six inch record in a corrugated cardboard mailer sleeve folds into a make-shift, human-powered record player which, when turned using a pencil, transmits vibrations through the needle and amplifies via cardboard corrugations. The player was distributed with a recording of a children's story called "A Town that Found its Sound". What a concept! Like the package of chicken you buy for dinner turning into a refrigerator, no okay how about the book jacket of your latest novel turning into a kindle VOIP reader? Which Vancouver based company was behind this?

The First Question - 25 May 2010

2010-05-30T22:23:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

Joey Aboma, SiteArm Madonna, Elf Ling, Meme Autopoesis

Quotes

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

-Albert Camus

Good players play to where the puck is, great players play to where the puck is going to be.

- Wayne Gretsky

Word-UP of the week –

Status Flux: The world as we know it.

-Meme Autopoiesis

Audience Quote of the week

Just don’t sleepwalk, and then dream of flying in SL

-Xanshin Paz

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Sometimes a genius captures our notice, and not because he had a PhD: this man flunked everything except auto shop and art in High School and didn’t even go to college As a custom car builder, he was a key figure in the hot-rod movement of the 1960s & was the man who inspired the title story of Tom Wolfe’s first collection of essays, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. He broke new ground with fiberglass bodywork. And his works often whimsical were recreated in toy plastic models. He was also the first person to put a custom image on a T-Shirt. Got to love the man behind the Orbitron, the Beatnik Bandit and the iconic Rat Fink, who was he?

2) It nails it right about 77 percent of the time, which is remarkable for any automated system. While computers process verbal commands straightforwardly, humans tend to use more sophisticated speech, slang or symbols to convey an idea. So a research team from this nation developed a machine algorithm for sarcasm. SASI, a Semi-supervised Algorithm for Sarcasm Identification, can recognize sarcastic sentences in product reviews online. It could also benefit opinion-mining systems. From which country did this algorithm for sarcasm come from?

3) He popularized amateur "wireless." In 1908 his Modern Electrics, was the world's first magazine about electronics. Five years later he invented “science fiction”. His contributions as a publisher were so significant that he is called "The Father of Science Fiction Magazines"; and it is in his honor, the annual Science Fiction awards are named. "Amazing Stories", was his publication which played a key role in starting a community because he published the addresses of people who wrote letters to his magazines. The fan community became organized. One of the first inductees into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, was who?

4) Over the weekend this countries Prime Minister officially launched his country's new virtual world program to attract skilled immigrants, called MyWorkLife. The program was developed and uses Second Life to try and show skilled workers why they should consider immigrating to his country. Users can upload their resumes, enter here, and interact with avatar representatives of government-linked companies. Employees may be more willing to locate to a foreign country if it's easier to learn about the area before making the move. What country is using this space to highlight job opportunities?

5) This made its debut in one of my all-time favorite Science Fiction movies – THX 1138. The movie depicts a dystopian future in which a high level of control is exerted upon the populace and it featured these - a booth with a huge mid 15th century picture of Jesus intoning "Let us be thankful we have commerce. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy more and be happy" & "Work hard; increase production, prevent accidents, and be happy." What is the booth called where the people of this future world commune with OMM in a robotic confessional?

6) One man made a difference – In the Himalayas’ which receives as little precipitation as the Sahara, farming is possible only in valleys fed by glacial runoff. Three glaciers surrounded Stakmo a village, 30 years ago, but have vanished, leaving nothing but bare rock. Without water, crops have failed. A retired local engineer has been working on a method to create artificial glaciers storing water that would otherwise have flowed away. During the crucial sowing season, the artificial glacier began melting and previously barren fields were turned green. Harvests increased threefold. Who is this man who is continually improving his design, adding more glaciers higher up and near different villages?

7) QA, Dexter & Monty are considered his children – he also is busy with his new young ‘un – QB. He has been designing telepresence robots for quite a while. He also is the inventor of the Eunicycle, a one wheeled Segway. His startup funding firm is called Y Combinator but he is most known for the amazing telepresence humanoid robots he is creating with a 5 megapixel camera, forward-mounted display, WiFi and 3G connectivity, and a laser pointer. His company is called Anybots, and he lives in Silicon Valley, who is he?

8) He is one of the first to sequence the human genome, and it led undoubtedly to his latest venture – breakthrough miracle or breakthrough to the new world order? Possible a topic for debate but The Artificial Cell invented by this man is not going to take it lying down. This billionaire scientist has made a synthetic cell from scratch & stated, “It is pretty stunning when you just replace the DNA software in a cell and the cell instantly starts reading that new software and starts making a whole new set of proteins, and within a short while all the characteristics of the first species disappear and a new species emerges..” Now we have Mycoplasma Mycoides a synthetic cell proving genomes can be designed in the computer, chemically made in the laboratory and transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a new self-replicating cell controlled only by the synthetic genome. Who is behind it?

9) And our machines are mutating - The life expectancy of a popular type of ion engine has been almost doubled using software that mimics natural selection. Electrostatic ion engines are becoming popular in space missions. Instead of relying on burning large amounts of heavy liquid propellant for thrust, they use solar power to ionise a small supply of xenon gas. Using evolution-mimicking software, it randomly generate values thought of as analogous to genes. After 100 generations, it spawned a design that almost doubled the engines lifetime. What kind of algorithm is it called?

10) You want to compete in a toy design challenge but you need inspiration –so you meet a focus group of 3rd graders, and ask them what sort of toy they’d like. Then you invent this - A prototype electronic doodle pad that animates your drawings. Once you’ve drawn and saved your first image, the lines of that image change from black to grey. You can then draw your second image over the top of the first one, etcetera. Once you’ve drawn your whole sequence, the pad quickly plays them back creating the illusion of movement. And you can edit your work if you latest cartoon becomes a plagiarism of Captain Underpants – what is it called?

11) Diamonds are beautiful and of course forever, so is plastic but I’d rather have a diamond ring than a Ken Doll to be honest. This is a new material using Diamonds and Ceramics to create a composite material that combines the best of both. It offers maximum wear-resistance and with low values of friction, making it ideal for tools that are subjected to heavy strain. Created by scientists from four Fraunhofer institutes, the diamond coating extends the durability for each application by a factor of 4 to 1,000. What just won the Stifterverband Award for Science?

12) Making things smaller is a process known as miniaturization, this isn’t quite on nanozation scale but it smaller than a bread box. It’s a mini PC with ultra-low-voltage processor options from Intel. This model uses up to 90 percent less plastic and consumes up to 90 percent less energy than traditional tower PCs." And it is small, teeny at 1.5 x 5.1 x 4.5 inches with 2GB of memory in different processor options. What is it called?

13) General Motor's Joint-Venture partner in China, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation rolled out a concept at Expo 2010 which is revolutionary. The idea behind the car, the car mind you - is that it will photosynthesize, absorbing carbon dioxide from surrounding air and emitting oxygen back into the atmosphere. It has a roof made of solar panels and wheels of small wind turbines that harvest energy. GM first participated in a world Expo in 1931 and its futuristic visions are this time set in the year 2030. I’m learning how to drive just in time for its 2030 release- What is this concept car whose name means “leaf” in Chinese?

14) MySpace might be back in the game – well literally and figuratively as late last week it launched a pilot program to bring third-party developers to create games – yes MySpace wants its own Farmville which isn’t available yet there. MySpace worked with Google to develop its implementation of this interface. Social gaming was part of MySpace's development roadmap as early as July 2009, when more game-friendly Facebook began decisively overtaking it in terms of traffic and stickiness. What is the new feature called to bring in the social game developers?

The First Question - 18 May 2010

2010-05-30T22:18:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

JoRoan Linden, Pebbles Hannya, Matthew Anthony, Zee Pixel

Quotes

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.
-Henri Frederic Amiel

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
-Salvador Dali

Word-UP of the week –
“Passmode” -- the state we put ourselves in when we arrive at an airport. In passmode normal expectations about customer service, personal space, and privacy are disabled, but sufficient functionality remains for us to pass through security, navigate to the gate, find our seats, and stow our luggage.
-Pebbles Hannya

Audience Quote of the week
“et tu brute'? naw I aint et nuthin”
-Diff Redenblack

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) It is a new Japanese weather probe and daring solar sail concept to study one of the planets close to us. Its name means "Dawn" and it has a solar sail named Ikaros. The solar sail's design should provide the first test ever of solar sail propulsion based on harnessing the pressure of sunlight during an ambitious three-year journey to the far side of the sun What is this named?

2) In this corner – a Huge company & in this corner a worker who designed a product to make his employed life better. Seems like a good match yes? Unless the huge company steals the little guys idea. Which Home Depot had done with Michael Powell who crafted an simple, yet ingenious, way to keep Home Depot employees from slicing off their fingers while cutting wood for customers. A federal judge calling the company “callous and arrogant,” ordered them to pay the former Boca Raton man approx. $25 million in judgments. What is the name of the gadget that is now affixed to radial saws at nearly 2,000 Home Depots nationwide?

3) students from NYU’s Courant Institute are looking to take on Facebook . They aim to address privacy concerns by giving users complete control of their details and content. To cut out the middleman, it will be a distributed network where separate computers connect to each other directly, instead of relying on a central hub plus it will aggregate content to the regular channels. They raised their 10K capital from Kickstarter in 12 days and plan to make the service available soon. What is it called?

4) You may recall a Nokia cameraphone application called Shoot to Translate from 2008, which worked only from Chinese to English- Today there is more & it’s from Google. Traveling in a foreign country means you carry your translator with you – but what if you want to know what a foreign language text like that huge sign over the bathroom door means? “Beware of Alligators in the toilet? “ “Do not use?” “Right this way for a massage?” You need to know! Google has a new feature that will help you with this - Point your phone at a word or phrase. Use the region of interest button -Press & If it recognizes the text, it will give you the option to translate in most western languages & soon Chinese, Hindi and Arabic – what is it called?

5) LED lights have not been able to achieve this color and it has proven a challenge. The U.S. Department of Energy predict that tungsten and fluorescent light will be phased out in four and ten years respectively, saving the U.S. as much as $120 billion over the next 20 years, leaving LEDs virtually the only player in the market. They need this color to create a white LED. When scientists applied their expertise in solar cell technology they solved this long-standing technological problem. What color LED has been recently accomplished?

6) This is an atmospheric electrical phenomenon, the existence of which is disputed. The term refers to reports of luminous, usually spherical objects which vary in size. It is usually associated with thunderstorms, but lasts considerably longer than the split-second flash of a bolt. Many of the early reports say it explodes, sometimes with fatal consequences, leaving behind the odor of sulfur. Is it real – a hoax or a hallucination brought about by the fluctuating magnetic fields which can make neurons fire in the visual cortex. Serious burns and deaths attributed to it need a material explanation. What is it?

7)Invisibility cloaks have been around longer than Harry Potter --Ray Cummings had one in his 1931 story Brigands of the Moon. An invisible dress has been created by University students in Taiwan. It is a textile-based display with an integrated camera in the back- When activated; the camera records the scene behind the wearer of the dress and then displays it on the textile display on the front. This design won what award at the first AiQ Smart Clothing Design Contest?

8) Working on an assembly line seems so 20th century but an alternative approach uses information-containing molecules . The "nanobots" are molecular machines made to "carry" different sizes of gold particles to create up to eight different products. And they don’t waste time talking on the assembly line about unnecessary things – like last night’s episode of LOST. These molecular machine nanobots are made out of programmable, what?

9) Lego has made its mark on us, and now we are internalizing Lego principles with some research MIT has done with artificial organs. Tissue engineering that encapsulates living cells in polymer cubes and assembles them like Lego blocks is taking place and the process solves one of the biggest problems facing tissue engineers: Getting cells grown in a lab to assemble into three-dimensional shapes. The new technique, involves tiny blobs of a gel-like material which stick together in a desired structure. What is it called?

10) It ordinarily guides visitors in museums and exhibitions, but has been upgraded to be a robot minister. Pronouncing man and wife last week. The groom remarked, “robots are what caused us to first begin going out, and as suggested by my wife, we decided that we wanted to try this sort of wedding," the bride said she wanted to use her wedding to show people that robots can easily fit into their daily lives. "I think having a robot minister is a great idea," said Bill Ingraham, pastor at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Ann Arbor, MI. "In some cases, it might be an improvement. What robot just performed a wedding in Japan?

11) It can tell you where you are, now the Department of Homeland Security is examining whether mobile phones can be adapted to do this. San Diego is working overtime and has successfully finished the first phase and It works a little like our nose, "We have a set of sensory cells that detect specific chemical properties. What will the smartphone be able to do next if the Dept of Homeland security has its way?

12) By creating specific kinds of tiny structures on a material’s surface, researchers can make a liquid spread only in a single direction. This has potential HUGE implications and this new system developed by a team at this University say that in principle such systems could provide new ways to manipulate biological molecules. As the components on a chip continue to get smaller and thermal management becomes ever more critical. Which school is behind this liquid management system? (MIT)

13) German researcher, Sami Haddadin, is concerned with robot & human behavior. He was actually behind a study to find out what happens when a robot punches a human in the face. He now is conducting a study to see what would happen if robots suddenly started slashing, poking, stabbing, puncturing and cutting people. The intent of this study is to understand what happens when you give robots sharp objects when in the vicinity of human beings. Where do robots currently carry knives in the line of duty?

14) Researchers have succeeded in building a molecular computer that, more than any previous project of its kind, can replicate the inner mechanisms of the human brain, repairing itself and mimicking how our brains process information like no silicon-based computer can. . A computer is made of organic molecules instead of silicon. Chips built this way are not only potentially much smaller but also, because of the way they can be networked, able to do things that no other traditional computer, regardless of its speed, can do. What is this new kind of electronics called?

15)This is the first experiment to show that a sense of body ownership can be transferred to an entirely virtual one. Over 10 years ago, body-transfer illusions were first demonstrated using a false hand. In the so-called rubber hand illusion , researchers found that if they put a rubber hand on a table in front of a person, and then stroked the rubber hand and the person's own hand at the same time and in the same way, they could convince the volunteer that the rubber hand was their own. More recently, the illusion was replicated using full-body manikins and it works! Volunteers' skin conducted more electricity when their manikin double was attacked with a knife, indicating fear. The experiment which also included stroking of the arm, demonstrated the strong connection the volunteers felt to their new, virtual bodies. At what university was this just carried out?

16) Dog and cats eliminate and how to turn that into a harvestable product isn’t easy. UNTIL NOW! This allows you to pickle your pet’s poop, turning it into a harmless plant fertilizer –it consists of two airtight containers, a liquid fermentative accelerant, and a dry culture mix made from wheat bran, molasses and microorganisms. Once full, you allow the container to sit for a few weeks Et voila What you should end up with is innocuous, nutrient rich soil. What is this?

17) Bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, is not good-- it’s in plastic and causes health problems. A new study, however, indicates that fungus could be used to eat it. Researchers discovered that white rot fungi could absorb BPA as a source of energy instead of being released into the environment. If the fungus decides to grow, get spray on skin, plastic muscles and a rat neuron controlled brain we might be in trouble but so far we are just looking at less BPA from Scientists Trishul Artham and Mukesh Doble, of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, which conducted the research. And they just published in the journal Biomacromolecules. Who publishes this journal?

18) Robots and people - the love that dares not speak its name okay, I exaggerate- but robots do need to learn manners. Beeping & insistent ringing isn’t going to get you on the Robot welcome wagon. Behavior modification might be in order - Where a human trying to deliver a message to a colleague might pause if the other is on the phone, for instance, robots do not, and robots don’t even say “I’m sorry,” when they push you out the way. Can you drop a robot untrained into the real world but equip it with the smarts to study and mimic the behavior of those around them? Possibly Peter Henry and Christian Vollmer’s team at what school will try to do this?

The First Question - 4 May 2010

2010-05-13T17:47:00.001+01:00

This week's panel

Andrew Hughes, August Lusch, Jay Ackroyd, Paley Westinghouse

Quotes

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.
-Georg C. Lichtenberg

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
-Buddha

Word-UP of the week -
Scrutz - the dirt and worse that accumulates on a computer screen
- Jay Ackroyd -
Telequila - The shot you should take when your client crashes mid teleport. The Telequila game can be deadly on Sundays.
- August Lusch -

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) He is known for bringing a historical approach to the philosophy of science. He defended realism about science, on pragmatic grounds: the electron is real because human beings use it to make things happen. From 1990, his focus shifted to psychology, aware of the modern schism that affects probability with personality which is of course subjective. He penned Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory, Who is this Canadian?

2) They are among the best-understood prehistoric vertebrates known to science in terms of anatomy, one has the feeling they would be welcome in any zoo. They had lots of hair which helped them in the freezing temperatures they favored – & something else. - A form of "anti-freeze" blood to keep their bodies supplied with oxygen. Nature Genetics reports that scientists "resurrected" their blood protein to come to this finding and found special kind of hemoglobin their modern ancestors don’t have. What animals was it?”

3) He started off “working on the problem of making boats go faster”. It is not only the anniversary of the post it note but of the Hovercraft- which was invented by this man whilst he owned and worked at Ripplecraft. He was attempting to make boat propulsion more energy efficient and one of his experiments was to inject air under the hull of his launch. He got it in front of Lord Mountbatten and the National R & D backed the project, Sir Christopher Cockerell the inventor saw it cross the English Channel in what year to widespread acclaim?

4) In 1973, the first phone call from a handheld cellular phone was made in New York City. The call connected with a base station that in turn connected to the land-line telephone system. The man who invented it stated that he was personally inspired by watching Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise use communicators on Star Trek in the late 1960's. Although Robert Heinlein wrote about a pocket-sized portable telephone 1948 ‘s Space Cadet. The inventor of the Dyna-Tac made a new prediction and I don’t think he saw this on Battlestar Gallactica - Who just said this-"The cellphone in the long range is going to be embedded under your skin behind your ear along with a very powerful computer who is in effect your slave."

5) This new garment by Vanessa Sorenson. is a wearable that visually displays the moods of your twitter stream If you've been sending out angry tweets, the LEDs on your sleeve will radiate red. If your spirits suddenly brighten, the colors will shift to a "happy" green. The project was intended as an exploration on "how social networking, more specifically Twitter, can demonstrate personalities in the real world via the virtual world." What is the name of this garment that broadcasts your mood?

6) Last week we mentioned Stephen Hawkins suggesting we not put out the cosmic welcome mat for ET & his Teeny weeny band. Now this former Defense minister fired back at Hawkins. In what could evolve into nasty twitter war this man basically said that it was too late. They are among us and that aliens probably brought humans technology such as LCDs and fiber-optics. That wasn’t enough, he went in for the smack – down with this comment "Hawking is indulging in some pretty scary talk there that I would have hoped would not come from someone with such an established stature'' Who believes that alien craft leftovers have seemingly triggered the IT and microchip revolution of today?

7) You think you are being watched, don’t we all? So, you look up and you don’t see anything but a flock of small, UAV’s have flown quietly into your city, maneuvering among the buildings. They communicate as they search for places to land, not on streets or flat rooftops but on the sides of buildings and under the eaves, where they can cling, bat or insect-like, in safety and obscurity , creeping along to get a better view. When finished, they launch themselves with a jump and become airborne again, ready for their next mission. What project from Stanford do you hope doesn’t have a drone with your name on it?

8) A new table-top card battle game designed by two physicians’ combines’ sorcery and creatures with a real-world knowledge of infectious diseases and therapeutics. As you and your opponent seek domination through conquest, you must vie not only with brute force, but astute understanding of microbiology and medical therapeutics. This card game – think Pokemon, let’s you Summon living manifestations of diseases, or counter-attack with antibiotics in the form of powerful warriors. Two doctors invented it struck by the complex nature of gaming and decisions to proscribe certain anti-biotics. What is this new card game for aspiring doctors called?

9) I know you don’t want to hear this but we just might have to clean up our atmosphere of debris so visiting aliens don’t think we are complete slobs. A space-flight engineer from Japan has a suggestion- how about A laser thruster firing pulses into a mass of solid propellant attached to space junk. The resulting force could push the object, altering its orbit and plunging it into the Earth's atmosphere, burning it up. This is reminiscent of the 1977 TV series describing the activities of the United Galaxies Sanitation Patrol Cruiser. Richard Benjamin and the Doublemint Twins starred in this series called what?

10) Traffic tickets issued, not in outer space, well not yet anyway, are a way to deter reckless driving. Car confiscation laws are now in place in many countries raising the price of a speeding ticket. From a $200,000 Lamborghini in Australia to a Bugatti Veyron worth 1.8 million euros that a 20-year old borrowed from his dad. The previously most expensive speeding ticket on record was handed out earlier this year in this country and cost $290,000. In what country was this ticket given where speeding fines are calculated on your net worth?

11) I love magnets, I think that the use of magnets in new ways will be a hallmark for the future. So did this man, but he died in the year 2000. He was a French physicist and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 for his pioneering studies of the magnetic properties of solids. His contributions to solid state physics have found numerous useful applications, particularly in the development of improved computer memory. About 1930 he suggested that a new form of magnetic behavior might exist above a certain temperature (named after him) He also made possible the study of the history of Earth's magnetic field. Who was he?

12) You want to talk to someone who speaks a foreign language but you aren’t in Second Life and you don’t have your translator on. What can help you outworld in a situation like this? This is the name of a new app that will soon become available which is claimed to turn your iPhone into a double ended language translator. It's one of the most innovative uses of the iPhone's form factor, with both people able to type on a keyboard in their own language at the same time and have the words translated and displayed for the other to see.. With 51 different languages and keyboards what is this called which will indeed make the world easier to understand?

13) A team at this school has developed a new thin film technology that can convert infrared light into visible light. Current night vision devices use huge amounts of electricity and heavy glass lenses. Adapted from flat screen television technology, the new film uses energy-efficient, organic LEDs. This keeps weight down, with a full scale device potentially weighing as little as 10 grams it may revolutionize night vision goggles and other military applications, not to mention eye-glasses and cars, think windshields . What school is behind this ground breaking tech which could even be adapted to measure heat?

14) The Marshmallow Challenge is a remarkably fun and instructive design exercise that encourages teams to experience simple but profound lessons . The task is simple: in eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top. The man who invented it is passionate about fostering design thinking, visual collaboration and team creativity. Who is he?

15) It costs 30$ a month and has of course, others doing things for you – You send an email of what you need done and an algorithm will assign your task to the best team member carrying out 15 personal administration tasks for you with efficiency and discretion. Started by a man in the R & D dept. of the New York Times, this is his side project. He has about 100 retired lawyers, between-job actors and others. They won’t pick up or even do your laundry but they can help with writing tasks and content creation. If you have to think about it twice, as the founder, Ted Roden says – just put it here? Into what?

16) You need to get into town, but the traffic is so bad, that last few miles, will take you an hour. Yes traveling at the speed of snail is not a future kind of thing. So the concept of “last few mile mobility” is one which we will all see grow. In the last year alone we've seen Toyota's Winglet, Honda's U3-X, Nissan's electric skis, and now Volkswagen has shown a micro mobility concept an electric bike with one of the most ingenious folding mechanisms ever – It has a range of 12 and half miles, can charge from the car its driving in on – & a top speed of 20 kmh because this means it can be ridden in Germany without a helmet- What will the new vehicle within from Volkswagen be called?

17) Nature has developed extremely efficient water-splitting enzymes – called hydrogenases – for use by plants during photosynthesis; however, these enzymes are for plants not humans. Our activities demand a stable metal catalyst that can operate under non-biological settings. Researchers have discovered an inexpensive new one- seventy times cheaper than the platinum commonly used at $2,000 an ounce.. This can significantly reduce the costs of producing hydrogen using electrolysis to split water. Metal catalysts are commercially available, but their high costs make widespread use prohibitive. In what state did this research occur?

18:) Nanopatches are fingernail-sized dermal patches that use microscopic projections to cells just below the surface of the skin. The influenza vaccine was dry coated onto some of these and applied to the skin of mice for two minutes. Transdermal drug patches were not commercially available until 1979. When compared to a needle and syringe a nanopatch is cheap to produce and it is easy to imagine a situation in which a government might provide vaccinations for a pandemic such as swine flu to be collected from a chemist or sent in the mail. In what country has the naonopatch been developing? (Australia) Not to be confused with the cabbage patch.

P:19) Swiss researchers have reported laser-powered cloud seeding success, both inside and outside the laboratory. Inside the lab, the powerful infrared laser caused visible clouds of vapor to follow in its wake when fired into a water-saturated chamber and sensitive weather apparatus recorded spikes in water droplet density when it was fired into the skies of Berlin. The pulses stripped electrons from atoms in the air, encouraging the formation of water droplets. It might not mean rain on demand, at least not yet but this actor was arrested in a 1985 video in the Kate Bush video for 1985's Cloudbusting. Who was he?

20) Detecting rust before it’s too late has been an ongoing challenge for engineers and scientists. Experts at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed an early-warning system for rust. By installing this in the concrete to measure the extent of corrosion, a magnetic field is used. This means it does not need to be replaced and can remain within the concrete structure permanently,” It may seem a little primitive, but until now the most effective tests to determine how deep the ions have penetrated the concrete and what damage they have caused is conducted by construction workers hammering on the reinforced concrete in search of cavities, which are conclusive signs of corrosion damage. What is being tested to see if it can really wirelessly transmit data on the condition of the bridges internal structure?

The First Question - 27 April 2010

2010-05-02T11:52:00.000+01:00

This week's panel

JB Hancroft, PB Recreant, QTPieMixemup, Q Linden

Quotes

"I believe that man will not merely endure. He will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
William Faulkner

"Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly."
Richard Bach

"A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders."
Lord Dunsany

Word-UP of the week -
“Primify” - To reduce any complex design to a set of simple shapes - in plywood, of course.
-JB Hancroft
“Rezbian:” - One who has a complete collection of anatomically correct Second Life body parts.
-Q Linden

Audience Quote of the week
"I miss grandma already......hey ! What's in this soup?"
-Xanshin Paz

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) There are people who are ahead of their time and then there are those who right on time. At 16, he had an idea that took him to his parents’ garage, strapping together a rectangular steel frame and a canvas sheet. He called what he made, a bouncing rig. That was in 1930. In 2000 the inaugural gold medal in trampolining was awarded. he once rented a kangaroo to bounce with him in Central Park. During the Second World War it was used to train pilots. The trampolines inventor died this month at the age of 96?

2) Mix Kraft Foods' contributions to a WWF-managed tiger conservation program, Animal Crackers and Barnum’ circus. Add 2010, the Chinese "Year of the Tiger" and you get -1 million special boxes to save endangered Asian tigers. Who designed this box giving it a "fresher, fashionable" look and an updated, environmentally conscious image with existing brand fans, as well building awareness among prospective buyers?

3) As a fan of meatricity, I report on this with great pleasure - It's estimated that one hour of pedaling at about 18 miles per hour will produce about 100 watt hours of electricity so. This hotel has installed two electricity-producing bicycles which are connected to the hotel's main supply. Guests who pedal hard enough score a complimentary meal once you reach the goal of 10 watt hours to earn your free meal. At what hotel in the UK can you pedal your way to the buffet?

4) Printing 3D objects is also something we are fans of here. And This can generate a building four times as fast at only half the cost . 3D printing of a building was something I thought only existed from the roadrunner cartoon & only available from ACME- nope!- this machines next challenge might be building moon bases. Its inventor is currently in talks with the European Space Agency about creating a version of the device that could use lunar dust to build structures on the surface of the Moon. The layers of sand are held by a binding agent said to be a magnesium-based solution. What tis the name of the machine or building process that is behind this?

5) Who ever invented twitter I’m sure didn’t think that thousands of tweets about what you ate for breakfast would be a bulwark of social media broadcasting, but it is. Even though legislation is pending to make those “I had a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch,” tweets illegal in some states. (I joke, I had a fajita for lunch) This new site is very investigative to say the least. –This is- the social network that instantly updates all your friends on what you're buying on your credit card -- updates include the location and the amount of each credit card purchase, and members can add extra information including photos of venues and comments on their purchases. Why anyone would want to do this well, I am frankly at a loss. What is the name of it?

6) Sometimes just wearing underwear isn’t enough, you want it to record important information for you & no I am definitely NOT talking about any new social network in my pants. But As the focus on healthcare shifts from centralized hospital-based treatment to home-based management, there are growing needs for developing reliable, wearable healthcare monitoring systems. Such on-body monitoring devices are also of interest for defense or sport applications. Direct screen-printing and Mechanical stress studies have indicated that textile-based printed sensors survive. What is the name of the brief that is part of this trend of documented evidence from our clothing?

7) There is a new multimedia search engine in the house, and they need room. Text-based searches might be great for hunting down relevant chunks of text, but searches for multimedia content can be tougher. It was the brainchild of an EU-wide joint project developed by researchers at the FranhoferInstitute, it can be used to detect similarities between different video or audio contents as well as genre. And it’s suitable not only for searches on the Internet and in archives, but also for TV programs, to check whether a contractually agreed advertisement has been broadcast. What works its magic by examining the digital fingerprints of multimedia files?

8) Its full-size USB keyboard broken into four connected quarter segments, allowing it to be folded over into a pocket-size rectangular shape. With the growing popularity of portable notebooks and tablets with smaller, cramped keyboards, having a full-size keyboard like this to tote around in your pocket might be a nice complement. It's fairly lightweight as well, weighing in at just over 8 ounces. The keyboard works with standard Windows and Mac operating systems. What is the name of the Japanese gadget giant that brought this to market?

9) The as yet unnamed PC was announced at a demonstration in Japan where a prototype was on show. It was revealed the 3D PC would feature a Blu-ray player and an LCD display that would display 3D content using polarized glasses - which are less expensive than the active shutter glasses. The computer reportedly uses software to convert 2D photographs or movies into 3D and includes a media player for 3D visual software. Which company will release before years end the 3D all-in-one desktop PC? (NEC) And 1000 Lindens for the first person on the web right now in treet talk -who can tell me how many times I said 3D in that last question?

10) It isn’t the most legal way to dispose of a body yet, but with ashes leaving a big carbon footprint and land becoming scare in places for burials – this just might be the coming thing. Its inventor, Sandy Sullivan, turns the human body into dust – which can be kept by grieving families – and a coffee-coloured liquid which is flushed down the drain. Glasgow-based Sandy has sold machines to Canada and the US, where five states allow the process, which is seen as being environmentallyfriendly. He said: “I am getting a lot of requests from families and we hope it will become legal in Scotland within the year. What is the name of this new way to deal with the Body after the soul has departed?

11) One of Britain’s best known and most controversial scientists, widely recognized as the "Sage” He pioneered X-ray crystallography and determined the structure of graphite. He is also famous for having firstly proposed a type of space habitat intended as a long-term home for permanent residents. After an influential Marxist account of the work of Isaac Newton changed his world-view he published The Social Function of Science, probably the earliest text on the sociology of science. From 1959-1965 he was chairman of the World Peace Council

12) His father operated a hand laundry while encouraging his son to get his education. It worked. Attracted to physics because of the clarity of its logic, he got his PhD at Columbia. Among his achievements are the discovery of the muon neutrino in 1962 and the bottom quark in 1977. He wrote a book with a great title, “The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?,” and described The history of atomism as one of reductionism - the effort to reduce all the operations of nature to a small number of laws governing a small number of primordial objects." Who was the man that undertook this quest?

13) The composition of algae is changing, as a result of which its nutritional value for other aquatic life is decreasing. As they are the first link in the underwater food chain, the algae ultimately influence the entire ecosystem, climate change is exerting an effect on underwater life. Experiments were performed with micro-algae in a higher concentration of this . Their faster growth was associated with a change in its composition - it had less nutritional phosphorous.. What did the micro algae grow faster but not better with?

14)A talking and singing robot which adaptively learns vocalization skill by means of an auditory feedback is being developed. It mainly consists of an air pump, artificial vocal cords, a resonance tube, a nasal cavity, and a microphone connected to a sound analyzer, which, respectively, correspond to a lung, and Vocal cord. Add a vocal tract, a nasal cavity, and an audition of Lady gaga singing and where can you find this being built?

15) You want to rough it but not really really rough it. You want to go to a remote undisclosed location but you don’t want to sleep in a tent and aren’t Dick Cheney with an underground hideaway at your beck and call. What to do? This 50 year old German company operates a hotel on wheels service. By day passengers sit in the front of the coach and take in all the sights, and by night they adjourn to the rear of the vehicle to enjoy their semi-private sleeping quarters. What is it called?

16) It has been estimated that 1.5 million barrels of oil are used annually for the production of one-use water bottles. About 38 million of those get tossed out each year. Then of course, there’s also the whole matter of wondering if you’re a sucker for paying to drink what is likely just filtered tap water. That’s where this contraption comes in handy.You just fill it from the faucet, and it filters the water as you drink. The filter is good for at least 300 bottlefuls, which should work out to about two months. What Is the name of this?

17) Students from Malardalens University in Sweden hope to send a robot tothe moon to deploy a tiny white house. The students are collaborating with artist Mikael Genberg, who is known for alternative living environments. The main idea of the project is for the robot to drop a small barn red house with white trim on the moon by 2012. The robot named Roony is being designed to deploy a tiny house on the moon. What is the robot called?

18) What timepiece would let you show off how green you are? It would have to be something that incorporates low-impact, sustainable and biodegradable materials, that doesn’t contain hazardous substances, and that supports recycling. These watches claim to be 80-86% eco-friendly by weight, depending on their size. Some of the features that make them eco-friendly include: Biodegradable corn resin bodies and buckles, Organic cotton bands and Mercury-free batteries. What is it called?

19) Scientists at this Institute for Production Technology have devised a carbon fiber fabrication process that they say is considerably quicker and easier than conventional ones. Traditionally, carbon fiber products are made through several tedious and time consuming steps. This doesn’t do that. This process utilizes carbon fibers that are integrated into kilometer-long strips of meltable resin tape. The tape strips are laid down over the form, side-by-side and on top of one another. Once in place, they’re compressed, and joined together by the heat of a laser melting the resin. It’s fast and precise. What country is prototyping this remarkable carbon fiber assembly?

The First Question - 20 April 2010

2010-04-24T20:52:00.003+01:00

This week's panel

M Linden, Sydney Caramel, FutureGuru Haiku, Professor Springflower

Quotes

“ More than iron, more than lead, more than gold I need electricity.

I need it more than I need lamb or pork or lettuce or cucumber.

I need it for my dreams. ”

—RACTER

"Living is more a question of what one spends than what one makes."

-Marcel Duchamp

Word-UP of the week–

“Flog” - It’s a blog where you get flogged.

-M Linden -

“Directionallydumb” – people who pretend to know where you are going (but don’t) and they point to it with their finger (with 100 percent certainty) instead of telling you that they don’t actually know and that you should ask someone else! Synonym – thatswhatGPSisforstupid

- Sydney Caramel

Audience Quote of the week –

“The thing with cueing the tinies is that you get hungry an hour later”

-Crap Mariner:

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) NASA decided to take crowd sourcing to the next level – and that is an understatement – - they have asked the general public to submit suggestions for where to point the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s high-resolution camera. The public suggestion tool on this site, has just released the first 8 incredible pictures that simply would not have been chosen otherwise. What is the name of the site which allows you to suggest and track what you want to see on Mars?

2) Remember when we spoke of the HaptiHug? It’s kind of silly yes, but effective in gaining a physical sensation that corresponds with text based affection. The problem is, it’s just not macho enough – and when you need to feel a simulation that has a different meaning, let’s say a gunshot to your torso, you need this. It has a USB-powered air compressor & was designed by a surgeon. Yes game-activated internal pneumatic pockets can simulate hits from a pistol or an Uzi, along with the sensations of explosions, stabbings, and rocket hits- but no hugs. What is it called?

3) Shrink-wrapped is the name of a webseries about a cybertherapist – but Shrink-wrapping also refers to a new kind of brain implant that essentially melts into place. Such ultrathin flexible implants, made partly from silk, can record brain activity faithfully and could pave the way for better devices to monitor and control. In people with epilepsy, the arrays could be used to detect when seizures first begin, and deliver pulses to shut them down. The absence of sharp and rigid surfaces improves safety, with less damage and provides better stability. What is the base material for this implant?

4) Currently, cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate and although technically they are biodegradable, this can take as long as 10-15 years. 4 and a half trillion cigarette butts end up as litter. How about a 100 percent biodegradable cigarette filter... with benefits? The manufacturers say when it is placed under a thin layer of soil it sprouts into green grass shoots or even blooming flowers. What is the name of this cigarette waste that users collect in a planter instead of an ashtray?

5) 3D movies are box office Boffo- But 3D is not new at all. The earliest confirmed 3-D film shown to a paying audience was this film which premiered in LA in 1922. The camera rig was a product of the film's producer, Harry K. Fairall, and cinematographer Robert F. Elder. It was a projected dual-strip in the red/green anaglyph format, making it both the earliest known film that utilized dual strip projection and the earliest known film in which anaglyph glasses were used. After a preview for exhibitors and press in New York City, the film dropped out of sight and is now considered lost..What is the name of it?

6) Something different this way comes… An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before. It certainly does not fit the pattern of supernovae or microquasars. Yet its apparent sideways velocity is four times the speed of light- What network of telescopes from the UK has found this mysterious source of radio waves?

P;7) In advance of the April 22 release of Avatar on DVD and Blu-ray an interactive exhibit which turns passers-by into blue-skinned Na’vi from the film using Facial recognition software, captures people’s images and transforms them as they watch. The morph is incredibly realistic. It goes well beyond augmented reality because it isn’t simply superimposing imagery, it’s actually altering the underlying content in real-time,” I would love to see this done for Second Life – I was an Avatar long before the Na’avi. The free-standing structure is comprised of multiple digital screens and centrally located at what famous L.A. mall?

8) Times they are a changing – once blogs were denounced by traditional news organizations until they couldn’t be denied & while we joke about the Pulitzer Prize for best tweet – this is “history-making” because for the first time online-only publications have won the prestigious award for editorial content. One had cartoons in video form and the other a nonprofit startup, a resource for struggling news organizations that can no longer afford to focus human resources on investigative reporting. Name either of the two Sites which won.

9) As the Netherlands remained neutral in World War I, Dutch artists were not able to leave the country after 1914 and were thus isolated from the international art world—especially Paris. Dutch Painter Theo van Doesburg started looking for other artists founding this a movement also known as neoplasticism, in 1917, One of its best known principal members was Piet Mondrian who embodied it’s principles of ultimate simplicity and abstraction. Limiting hispaletteto red, yellow, and blue, and the three primary values, black, white, and grey, he embodied their code. In 1924, Mondrian broke with the group after van Doesburg proposed the theory of elementarism, proposing that the diagonal line was more vital than the horizontal and the vertical. What was the name of this important Dutch art movement?

10) Anthony Masters' book “The Man Who Was M: The Life of Charles Henry Maxwell Knight” asserts Ian Fleming conceived the plan that lured Hess into flying to Scotland, in May 1941, to negotiate Anglo–German peace with Churchill, and resulted in Hess's capture. Fleming possibly conceived of a plan to use this British occultist to trick Rudolf Hess into attempting to contact a fake cell of anti-Churchill Englishmen in Britain, but this plan was not used because Hess had already flown to Scotland in an attempt to broker peace behind Hitler's back. Who was the infamous British occultist he thought to use?

11) We are of course hoping to have a show in 2013- heck by then The 1st Question should be playing on your mobile but for some the end of the world is scheduled for December 31, 2012. While most of us will sweat it out in that underground shelter in our suburban basements – how retro is that! One company envisions a network of underground shelters located near major cities across the U.S. in spacious quarters for up to one year to “ride out the potential events.” At 10 million USD, they are luxury shelters – possibly a new term. Equipped with everything you need for survival including computers, exercise equipment and medical facilities with abundant storage areas for food, fuel, water, and clothes. Spaces in the bunkers are likely to be in the US$50,000 price range and so far over 1,000 applications have been received to reserve a place. What is the name of the company who is building these?

12) This robot can draw! Drawing has been practiced by every civilization since the dawn of humankind. Now Robotkind joins in as computer scientists at Goldsmiths, University of London. Have devised an algorithm that allows this robot to approximate an artist, as well as recreating the thought process that unconsciously occur when drawing someone's face. In particular the research focuses on face sketching. Whose work might hang in the first museum of robot art?

13)She is an American viral video comedienne, and a lifecaster Her popularity is such that a video about her wanting to order a cheeseburger got 600,000 YouTube views in a week. She is known for her "300-page iPhone bill", which earned her international attention and celebrity. As of December 2009 she has about 1 million twitter followers & her videos have attracted a total of 64 million viewers. She does her work with a $400 Canon Powershot digital camera and a $12 green rug from Ikea to create her green screen. She was also shown as a contestant on the 7,000th episode of The Price Is Right I think I should make her an Avatar –and get her on The 1st Question- agreed? Who is she either her Internet name or birth name?

14) He is a legend and of course we hope he is watching tonight, As the creator of Spore and the Sims, Will Wright can pretty much write his own ticket. He just has signed an agreement with this Channel to produce programming that engages an audience. Known in the game industry for the systemic and scientific way that he approaches game design he was approached to bring it to TV. While we can’t wait to see what he comes up with, we really can’t wait for him to see this show. What Channel on cable is Mr. Wright teaming up with to deliver a program, hopefully ours?

15) Fuel cell and microorganisms are the wave of the future – from a moddedvirus splits water molecules to microbes which secrete liquid diesel. The Navy has been using small lightweight microbial fuel cells to power sensors and now its goal is to develop one that is powerful enough to steer a small robotic watercraft. “Think of it as a battery that runs on mud In a microbial fuel cell, organisms feed on available nutrients and generate an electric current as they metabolize the food. The Navy calls it “a device with the potential to revolutionize naval energy.” & is working with researchers at the University of Massachusetts on a microbe called what?

The First Question - 13 April 2010

2010-04-23T17:13:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

Ran Hienrichs, Tricia Farella, GreyWolfMornington, DougMandlebrot

Quotes

"The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences."

Henry Ward Beecher

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."

- Albert Einstein

"I always say, dare to struggle, dare to grin."

Wavy Gravy

Word-UP of the week –

“Rezbarassment” - The realization that you have been walking around half the day with one shoe on and one misshapen foot.

-GreyWolfMornington–

Audience Quote of The Week-

I can see a new product the iMovement

-Emmo Wei:

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) China is on track with its first offshore wind farm, a 102-megawatt array. The project is the latest in a series of moves by the Chinese government to pad its lead as the world’s largest market for wind power. This year China is expected to invest $100 billion to install up to 30,000 megawatts of power. There is some analogy to the US - For example, very recently, Cape Wind, which has proposed a wind farm off Nantucket, announced it had ordered 130 turbines. The difference is that China’s is about to start generating electricity, whereas Cape Wind has been waiting for its federal permit since it gained state and local ones in what year?

2) Described as one of the most energy-efficient skyscrapers in the world. This over 2 million square-foot Tower incorporates the latest green techand engineering including wind turbines . The design incorporates a series of other elements, including solar panels, , chilled ceiling system, under floor ventilation air, and daylight harvesting. While many of these attributes have been incorporated individually into skyscrapers around the world, this represents the first time that they have been used collectively. What building is an amalgam of green anyway you spell it?

3) The landscape of Mars portrayed in stories like the Martian chronicles, is a desert planet crisscrossed by giant canals built by an ancient civilization to bring water from the polar ice caps. It is a common scenario in science fiction of the early 20th century, stemming from early telescope observations of Mars by 19th century astronomers. It began with this Italian in 1877. He believed he saw straight lines on the planet. And called them canali, popularly mistranslated into English as "canals". Based on this and other evidence, the idea that Mars was inhabited by intelligent life was put forward by a number of prominent scientists’ notably American astronomer Percival Lowell. But who was the Italian astronomer who started it all?

4) The company is willingly projecting the first drop in annual sales of its handheld player, because the forthcoming 3-D model will be the company’s biggest portable product introduction since 2004. The world’s biggest maker of video-game machines is embracing the 3-D technology that helped the film “Avatar” break box-office records. The 3DS, going on sale this fiscal year, will compete against the PlayStation Portable and iPad. The company said the new handheld device will allow users to see 3-D images without the need for special glasses. Which company will be in 3D?

5) It is a problem for people with pets – they like to drink from the toilet. However it’s not the best idea for many reasons, including when they want to kiss you. Now a device with an alarm that sounds warning beeps when a pet or person approaches the bowl and the lid is up has arrived. Attached to the underside of the lid it will flash and emit warning beeps when pets or humans approach from 28 inches away. The battery-powered deterrent switches to off mode when the lid is closed. And if your mate leaves the toilet seat up this just also might be the training he needs to keep it shut. What is this new step in electronic toilets called?

6) As the population ages our organs wear out, wouldn’t it be great if we could just clone them? The NewOrgan Prize is an incentive launched by this foundation, and be awarded for successfully constructing a whole new organ from the patient's own cells. This newest longevity prize specifically focuses on speeding up the development of replacement tissues and organs - Wouldn’t you like to know your new liver is waiting for you let’s say 40 years down the road? I would – what Foundation is taking matters into its own hands to reverse aging?

7) Organs on demand won’t interfere with your iPlants. Neural implants are becoming more important in medical research. And ones for communications raise interesting possibilities However, a recent paper details some of the consequences of having an electronic device implanted below the surface of your conscious mind. Security vulnerabilities have already been discovered; in 2003, a hacker demonstrated that cardiac defibrillators could be compromised wirelessly. And if someone was to hack that neural implant, how would you state your case and how could you prove it? No your honor, I didn’t want to steal that jelly donut but I was forced to do so. Of course the movies that come out of this scenario – “Hackers Stole My Brains” will be interesting – What is the name given to special safeguards protecting neural brain implants from being compromised?

8) You want to go to space you don’t have 200,000 to go with Virgin galactic, and you want to go longer than 5 minutes. Okay you really want to go but you don’t have 35 million for a week on the International Space Station. Guess what? The Zero Gravity Corporation operates the officially named G-FORCE ONE, from major US cities and if You want to feel what it is like to be weightless, And you have $5,000 That's the cost of a flight in a modified Boeing 727 alarmingly nicknamed this

9) In spite of the technological age we live in it is reported that one-in-five people don’t have access to clean drinking water. More than 97 percent of the world’s water is in the oceans, so turning salt water into fresh water cost and energy efficiently is the best hope for clean water as demand is growing faster than the population rate. This company is helping to build a new, energy-efficient desalination plant with an expected production capacity of 30,000 cubic meters per day powered by ultra-high photovoltaic technology - a system with a concentration greater than 1,500 suns. What Global company is working in Saudi Arabia on a project with worldwide implications?

10) Yes it is International Robotics week, I took my Roomba for a drive and to the movies –But don’t you wish sometimes that your robot could do more, and could learn effortlessly from other robots? Well now they can! Research institutes are developing a collective worldwide online memory for robots, wherein robots can learn from each other's capabilities, thus streamlining new operations. It is designed to help robots adapt their pre-programmed tasks to unfamiliar new situations and settings. Allowing it to circumvent the accompanying period of trial and error. Your robot can learn from a collective online memory called what?

11) As long as they don’t interfere with my neural implants I’m fine with that. EVER since Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space in 1961, all Soviet and Russian cosmonauts have trained at the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Centre.. It was a highly guarded military facility during the Soviet era, But now you can go through a tour. The museum showcases spacesuits, charred descent capsules and assorted Gagarin memorabilia= For the brave of heart, some tour operators can also arrange a spell in the centrifuge or flights which simulate weightlessness. What is this amazing place?

12) Since 1940, 26 new elements beyond uranium have been added. We have a new element for the periodic table – and it isn’t Avatarium - Researchers are approaching the presumed “island of stability” which is a term in nuclear physics that refers to a region beyond the current periodic table where new superheavy elements with special numbers of neutrons and protons would exhibit increased stability. Its discovery by an international team of scientists from Russia and the U.S was just published this month. The discovery of element 117 wasn’t easy. (Well the birth of super heavy things rarely are) What is its official name?

13) Ah the internet – a great place to find and post stuff anonymously. Some call this the whistle blowers site and some want it removed from the World Wide Web. When “This document is labeled classified” you can be sure it might eventually show up on here which uses trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, It was the subject of a 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation that worried about moles within gov't agencies ‘followed by a plan to fatally marginalize the organization, which doesn’t work. There have been embarrassing stories broken by this site, and the current news is The Washington Post, New York Times and several other papers are rethinking policies that allow online commenters to remain anonymous. Coincidence? Perhaps – what tis this anonymous website called?

14) You always wonder how a Nazi could face themselves in the mirror– This man, a former Luftwaffe pilot who was considered to be one of the most advanced dive bombers in the world has an incredible story. As he walked past a synagogue in a small Polish town, he saw storm troopers killing a group of Jews. The sight of the synagogue's rabbi, who did not let go of the Torah even in his death made a great impression. Changing this man forever he began disobeying orders, saving lives by dropping bombs in lakes. After the end of the war, he decided to work as a coal miner for twenty years. During those years, as self-imposed penance, he anonymously donated two-thirds of his wages to organizations that helped Jewish war orphans, and those who survived concentration camps. Then he bought a farm in Galilee and told rabbis his story and asked to be converted to Judaism. Who was he? Either Name will do-

15) It is a rare genetic condition which is found in very gregarious children who are unusually unafraid of strangers. "They don't recognize danger in faces and they approach anyone, they have been tested and found to not mirror the same kind of prejudice for those with different racial profiles. And they have a presumed deficit in processing fear & reduced neural activity in the amygdala, a brain region that processes social threats. Since racial bias in adults has been also linked to over-activity in this area, people who are not dictated by social fear are thought to also be less prejudiced, what is this syndrome called?

16) Cycling in the cold and in the freezing cold is not for the faint of heart or hide. However being able to negotiate the handlebars takes superhuman stamina and makes it even harder than it has to be. Enter this product more than gloves; more than mittens, it is designed to keep your hands warm and dry while cycling in the freezing cold, because someone has to do it. Toronto cyclist Hamish Greenland addressed this problem when The idea of a cover for handlebars came to him after riding home from work at [5F]," with an invention he has named affectionately designed to eliminate the windchill both on your hands, and on your cold-conducting aluminum bars." What does he call it?

The First Question - 6 April 2010

2010-04-23T17:09:00.001+01:00

This week's panel

Devon Alderton, TyrehlByk, Karen Shemesh , Damian Firecaster

Quotes of The Week

“A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.”
-James Boswell

"Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men."
-Mortimer Adler

Word-UP of the week –
“SLY-PAD-IT IS” - A newly discovered mental disorder that reveals itself when new iPad owners realize that SL won’t run on their IPAD…
-Karen Shemesh

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) He founded his company using technological know-how and his first successful product was an electronic calculator kit. Trying to get out of debt he developed the Altair 8800 PC. This was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics- Prior to it, most computers were still giant machines in university labs, but he believed there were enough tech nerds like him that a personal computer would be a success. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were two and Altair BASIC was Microsoft's first product. He sold his company in 1977 and retired by becoming a country doctor. The father of the personal computer" passed away this week, who was he?

2) This personal home robot brought to you by NEC now has a new function. It can blog about you. NEC included voice recognition to allow the robot to take elements of your daily life and blog about them. When a user converses with it over the course of the day, it records and analyzes your comments. So talk nicely to it. It searches for related multi-media content, including music and images, and uploads it's view of your day. What robot do you want to have a good conversation with?

3) Professional networking sites like LinkedIn have helped people manage their reputations by allowing them to post tightly controlled profiles– while useful, you aren’t going to say anything negative about yourself are you? Well now other people can! This new site is built on reviews that aim to present a raw picture. Named “2010’s worst startup” byEconsultancy, it’s available by invitation-only and was released in beta a few days ago. . If someone posts a nasty, the site does not allow you the option of removing the post or deleting your profile - opening the forum to personal vendettas and anonymous drive-by attacks that can’t be erased or edited and that live in search forever What site are you checking right now to see if you have been mentioned?

4) Freeman Dyson's thought experiment suggested that in our search for advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, we should look for spheres, instead of radio signals. This is a nearly perfectly spherical planetary vapor found in the Crescent Nebula. It was discovered independently by an amateur astronomer and a professional in 2008. Its near perfect symmetry has led it to be considered a possible candidate for a Dyson sphere constructed around a star by an advanced civilization. What is it called?

5) You are alone, you are at your computer and sometimes that smiley or frowny face well it just isn’t enough - at the Augmented Human International Conference held recently in France, Japanese scientists unveiled a robot, to boost feeling & add a human-like sense of touch to cyberspace. We are steeped in computer communication but many people don’t connect emotionally, so by outfitting a person with sensors, speakers, vibrators, and motors, strapped around their torso — their emotions can be read by the robot and picked up by the other person. And feel the incoming emotions too. The robot is 90 percent accurate in judging emotions like joy, fear, and guilt. The scientists also tested their system in Second Life, Five years in the making. The quickened thump of an angry heartbeat, a spine-tingling chill of fear, or that warm-all-over sensation sparked by true love -- all can be felt even as your eyes stay glued to a computer screen. What is the proof of concept robot called?

6) This company has now introduced a 100% compostable bag for their snacks in the US and Canada. Made with plant-based polylactic acid, the new bags will completely biodegrade within about 14 weeks when placed in a hot, active compost bin. Once finished, the bags were submitted to the independent Wood’s End laboratory, which certified their compostability. So don’t throw it in the trash! What is the name of the company or the snack that will increase national composting awareness with the US Composting Council, recycling educators Earth 911, and Al Gore’s Current TV?

7) “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door so said Emerson - The mousetrap is far and away the most invented machine in all of American history. Since it first opened in 1838, Roughly forty new mousetrap patents have been granted each year, every year, in thirty-nine official subclasses that include “Impaling,” “Smiting,” “Choking or Squeezing,” “Constricting Noose,” &“Electrocuting and Explosive,” (robwag commented that shooting with a gun seemed to be left out.) Of the more than forty-four hundred mousetraps patented fewer than two dozen have ever earned a cent. I have a new mousetrap to report tonight – the "Multi-Kill Electronic Mouse Trap". The mice sashay to their doom through one of two entry points, up the lab-tested staircase and into the kill zone looking for the bait, bacon and peanut butter are recommended. The company says there are no escapes, ever. After electrocution, the Shock N’ Drop Chamber automatically rotates and deposits the dead mouse in the collection drawer holding up to ten mice. What company has just built a possibly better mousetrap?

8) Unlike the Multi-Kill Electronic mousetrap, Recidivism rates among prisoners is insanely high. In California, seven out of ten prisoners return to prison within three years. Something needs to change The basic prison design from the late 1800s of the Panopticon has been the norm, now two Malaysian architecture students use height as a wall in their award winning design concept. . Their project examines the possibility of creating a prison-city in the sky, where the inmates would live in a “free” and productive community with agricultural fields to grow food for the city below, factories and recycling plants that would be operated by the offenders as a way to give back to the community and support the host city below them. What is this innovative prison in the sky called?

9) This man had a vision of building "the world's free virtual school”, and his teaching academy has a 2009 Tech Award with 12+ million views and 1200+ 10-minute "videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations & physics, and challenges in growing a non-profit from zero to global impact. MIT had 12 point something million cumulative views as of today, so did this man who is he?

10) The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury about the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists. It follows a "future history" structure. The stories complete in themselves, come together as episodes in a larger sequential narrative framework. The first third (set in the period from January 1999—April 2000) details the attempts of the Earthmen to reach Mars, and the various ways in which the Martians keep them from returning.. As we know, we didn’t reach Mars 10 years ago – A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates in the original by how many years?

11)A tiny spacecraft has been designed at Cornell University to save us all. The intent of engineers is to deploy a swarm of them between the Earth and the sun. If a solar flare strikes, the additional warning will give us time to prepare. The tiny craft are little more than solar panels with radio antennas, the spacecraft is just one centimeter square, and weighing just 7.5 milligrams A SWARM of this spacecraft, positioned at a Lagrange point between the Earth and the sun, could alert us to the approach of dangerous space storms well before a conventional craft can. The first prototypes are due for launch into low-Earth orbit this year, perhaps as early as May. What are they called?

12) Following 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, Cary Fowler, thought Sooner or later a disaster is going to strike a major seed bank. A former university professor and an agricultural diversity expert, he sent a letter to Norway asking the government if they would be willing to look into the feasibility of establishing a fail-safe one. He didn’t want to put it in New York or Moscow, but in a remote location away from most of the dangers in the world. It needed to be naturally cold, so as not to be completely dependent on mechanical refrigeration. The project launched in 2008 to “to serve as the ultimate safety net for one of the world’s most important natural resources and is called the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. What has it been nicknamed?

13) The director of the Pentagon’s research arm said last month that the United States could soon face a severe lack of science and engineering graduates, putting the nation’s security at risk. Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, showed poor emphasis on science and engineering education in America may leave the nation unable to call forth an elite army of futuristic technogeeks whose resulting innovations also contribute significantly to the Nation’s economic vitality. DARPA’s representative said dwindling funds means it can’t recruit the best brains, themselves a shrinking resource: colleges and universities in the U.S. saw what percent fewer science and computing graduates?

14) China is on track to bring its first offshore wind farm online, a 102-megawatt array. The project is the latest in a series of moves by the Chinese government to pad its lead as the world’s largest market for wind power. This year China is expected to invest $100 billion to install up to 30,000 megawatts of power. There is some analogy to the US - For example, last week, Cape Wind, which has proposed a wind farm off Nantucket, announced it had ordered 130 turbines. The difference is that China’s first offshore wind farm, installed by top Chinese turbine producer Sinovel, is about to start generating electricity, whereas Cape Wind has been waiting for its federal permit since it gained state and local ones in what year?

15) The background of Mars portrayed in stories like the Martian chronicles, is a desert planet crisscrossed by giant canals built by an ancient civilization to bring water from the polar ice caps. It is a common scenario in science fiction of the early 20th century, stemming from early telescope observations of Mars by 19th century astronomers who, beginning with this Italian in 1877, believed they saw straight lines on the planet. This astronomer called them canali ("grooves" or "channels”), which were popularly mistranslated into English as "canals". Based on this and other evidence, the idea that Mars was inhabited by intelligent life was put forward by a number of prominent scientists around the turn of the century, notably American astronomer Percival Lowell.But who was the Italian astronomer who started it all in 1877?

The First Question - 30 March 2010

2010-04-03T20:29:00.003+01:00

This week's panel

Curious George, Patio Plasma, Boole Allen, FutureGuru Haiku

Quotes

A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective.

-Edward Teller

The next major explosion is going to be when genetics and computers come together. I'm talking about an organic computer - about biological substances that can function like a semiconductor.

-Alvin Toffler

A satellite has no conscience.

-Edward R. Murrow

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

-Alan Perlis

Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.

-Jean Rostand

Word-UP of the week – “Twitless” - someone who is generating not particularly smart or amusing tweets.

- Curious George

Audience Quote of the week -

“If you believe in something enough it becomes real – that is the placebo effect defined in a nutshell.”

-Petlove Petshop

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Lots of controversy in Congress this week and tears no doubt from many corporations as a nationwide wireless public safety network as part of the FCC's National Broadband Plan. The FCC is asking many to give up control of the airwaves wholesale so that mobile and wireless companies can also provide in the spectrum. The plan will ask Congress to set aside $16-$18 billion over a 10-year period to help build and operate while recommending that the entire 700-MHz band goes public, The FCC chairman has spoken & additionally stated The private sector simply is not going to build a state-of-the-art, broadband network for public safety on its own dime," Who is Mr. FCC?

2) In 1926, P. A. Glick, a scientist from the federal Division of Cotton Insect Investigations, counted almost 36 million bugs. We know that being able to take cues from nature has contributed greatly to engineering design. I don’t offhand know how an astronaut would duplicate this but here goes: It climbs up to an exposed site (a twig or a flower, for instance), stand on tiptoe, raise its abdomen, test the atmosphere, After that, it starts releasing several silk threads which automatically form a triangular shaped parachute and launches itself into the blue, all free legs spread eagled. Most rides will end a few meters later, but some can travel high up into the upper atmosphere. Depending on mass and parachute to float traveling high up into the upper atmosphere. What insect has been found flying at 15,000 Ft?

3) You need to interact with a robot, but don’t want one of those last century static ones – use this, MIT created a semi-autonomous robot that gives a person a richer way to interact remotely with an audience than is allowed with phone and video conferencing. It’s able to communicate some body posture, a wide range of head movement and very expressive hand gestures.. And is a push toward a future where remote presence can be achieved easily in a way that saves traveling time but still achieves the same experience as "being there”. That is when you cant log into Second Life. Results showed that people felt more psychologically involved and more engaged in the interaction with their remote partners when they were embodied in a socially expressive way. I would choose my avatar - What is this robot called?

4) 37 years ago, a robotic Russian rover drove 35 kilometers on the Moon. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, is currently mapping the Moon in great detail from its orbit near the Moon's surface. On March 15, NASA released some images and data from the LRO. Using that information, the author of "The International Atlas of Lunar Exploration" found the tracks of the rover in one of the images. Can you name the university where that author is a professor?

5) Joe and Al were on their way to Pluto, and found themselves off-course. This might be reminiscent of Bugs Bunny taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque- but it is actually part of a book – no not how to find a habitable planet! We have mentioned this mid 20th century author before, one of Isaac Asimov’s favorite writers for his novel Space Lawyer, (which is not, unfortuantely going to be Syfy cable series) He wrote of a variety of great inventions as only Science fiction writers can – who was the author of The Emperor of the Stars which contained the Thought screen, Gravito-Statoscope, Atmosphere Tester, and my favorite the Deviatoscope A device that registered how much your course diverged from what you intended?

6) We want robots to be smarter and do our tasks and then even our thinking for us. In 1960,The magazine of Fantasy & Science fiction published a story about a robot that is able to autonomously find an electrical outlet and plug itself in to recharge- and I quote here from the story-

"...they're motivated first by a random device and then they learn. The lines of connection in the graphite-gel that turn out the most successful remain like a printed circuit and then if occasion arises, they overprint them. My whole idea is to get away from a machine with a set of prearranged instructions, and le them teach themselves by trial and error....they're supposed to have complete freedom of choice.” Name the story by Stephen Barr.

7) His father, arrived in Mexico in 1902 from Lebanon, alone at 14 years escaping from the Ottoman Empire, which at the time conscripted at 15. By the time he was 26, his net worth was $40 million. He has substantial influence over the telecommunications industry in Mexico and much of Latin America. According to The Wall Street Journal, he credits part of his ability to discover investment opportunities early to his friend, Alvin Toffler. In 1997, just before the company introduced its iMac line, he bought three percent of Apple Computer's stock. And yes he is the world’s richest man, his net worth estimated at US$53.5 billion which coming from a country Mexico whose per capita income does not surpass $14,500 a year, with nearly 17% of the population living in poverty does generate some controversy. He might buy the New York Times, (he is their leading creditor atm) or a soccer team or a formula one racing team. Who led the charge to privatize the Mexican telecommunications industry?

8) During a lecture, he noticed a compass needle deflected from magnetic north when electric current from a battery was switched on and off, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism. His initial interpretation was that magnetic effects radiate from all sides of a wire carrying an electric current, as do light and heat. Three months later he showed that an electric current produces a circular magnetic field as it flows through a wire. He was the first modern thinker to explicitly describe and name the thought experiment. He has a unit of magnetic strength, named after him, His work also represented a major step toward a unified concept of energy, - who was he?

9) They should name an ultimate unit of Troy after you - Why conduct a thought experiment, hmmm let me think? OH yes! To predict and forecast the indefinite and unknowable future - Scientists also use thought experiments when physical experiments are impossible such as Einstein's chasing a light beam, which lead to Special Relativity. Or a what if? Like If Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz had cooperated with each other, what mathematics would look like today?" possibly not much if they had got on REALLY well. Einstein had pointed out that the quantum superposition of an unstable keg of gunpowder will, after a while, contain both exploded and unexploded components. Quantum mechanics has its flaws and to illustrate the bizarreness of some of it and the mathematics necessary to describe quantum states, this famous thought experiment of a paradox, was given – It is Named after the physicist who invented it and its primary actor, a 4 legged animal = What is it known as?

10) Current computers operate using binary coding; thousands to trillions of small electrical circuits representing a binary digit of information by means of an electronic switch. The future of computing is to move this to a quantum scale, where the weird properties of subatomic particles can be used to create much faster computers. A new device developed by Harvard scientists which uses nanostructured wire made of this to provide a bright, stable source of single photons at room temperature represents a breakthrough in making this quantum technology a reality. What substance is being used, its color center containing an electron spin associated with a nitrogen vacancy that has manipulative photons?

11) I don’t mean rhinestones! Scientists have discovered that a moving pulse of heat traveling along these miniscule wires can cause powerful waves of energy. These "thermopower waves" can drive electrons along like a collection of flotsam propelled along the surface of ocean waves, creating an electrical current. The previously unknown phenomenon opens up a new area of energy research and could lead to a new way of producing electricity. Nanotubes made of this were coated with a layer of reactive fuel that produces heat by decomposing. It was then ignited at one end and the result was a fast-moving thermal wave. With a temperature of 3,000 kelvin, this ring of heat sped along the tube 10,000 times faster than normal. The amount of power released, was much greater than that predicted by It’s being called electron entrainment, since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity.” What were the nanotubes made of?

12) With digital clocks all around us you have to be pretty important to actually wear a watch these days. I would ask for a show of hands from our panel as to who is actually wearing a watch right now but the time on my computer indicates we are running a bit late – suffice it to say that most watches are built to withstand varying degrees of water pressure and shocks . But a new watch from Seiko has been built to withstand the harsh environments found during an afternoon spacewalk. It is the first watch ever designed for use in outer space, and that might restrict the market so Seiko will only make 100 of these watches at $28,000 USD.. Who was the original Spring Drive Spacewalk watch built for?

13) We have discussed breakthroughs in science in technology and in undergarments – Tonight is no exception – This company invented the Konkatsu Bra which played a marriage waltz and stopped the self destruct timer when an engagement ring was fed to it. Now this company has come up with something even more interesting- The latest bra is designed to appeal to the growing numbers of female golfers in Japan looking for a unique way to practice their putting. The “Nice Cup In Bra” consists of a putting green colored top that unfurls into a 1.5-meter-long putting mat. If things get too unruly then the pink skirt with the words “Be Quiet” emblazoned across the rear can be used as a flag. Upon sinking a putt into either of the cups a speaker will congratulate the user with a cry of “nice shot.” What is the name of this inventive Japanese company?

The First Question - 16 March 2010

2010-03-22T20:31:00.001Z

This week's panel

Curious George, Patio Plasma, Boole Allen, FutureGuru Haiku

Quotes

A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective.

-Edward Teller

The next major explosion is going to be when genetics and computers come together. I'm talking about an organic computer - about biological substances that can function like a semiconductor.

-Alvin Toffler

A satellite has no conscience.

-Edward R. Murrow

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

-Alan Perlis

Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.

-Jean Rostand

Word-UP of the week – “Twitless” - someone who is generating not particularly smart or amusing tweets.

- Curious George

Audience Quote of the week -

“If you believe in something enough it becomes real – that is the placebo effect defined in a nutshell.”

-Petlove Petshop

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

The First Question - 9 March 2010

2010-03-12T21:47:00.001Z

This week's panel

Zen Paine, Kit Guardian, Madcow Cosmos, Emmo Wei

Quotes

Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.
-Jose Ortega y Gasset

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
-William James

There is no wealth but life.
-John Ruskin

Word-UP of the week – Was a tie!!
“Primaholic” - Someone who shops too much and wants to have too many fancy detailed things in there home and on their avatar. . I am a primaholic.
-Kit Guardian
“Koalalumper” - Not the Malaysian city but what happens after a brutal opening act for the 1st question
-Emmo Wei

Audience Quote of the week-
Sunman Loring: I eat food fast not fast food

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) You or someone you know has wanted one of these since they saw James Bond's Thunderball, Developed by the U.S. military in 1961 with the aim of producing an all-terrain vehicle to move military commanders around a battlefield, the Bell Rocket Belt could only maintain flight for 26 seconds on a full tank of fuel. Sadly it’s limits meant consignment merely to film work and TV appearances. Now this country’s Martin Aircraft has announced production of 500 units a year whisking a pilot along at 63 mph and at 8,000 ft. with no pilot license required. It will set you back Roughly $75,000. Currently air traffic control technology is not yet advanced enough to cope with jetpacks, but the US Federal Aviation Administration is developing "highways in the sky" technology - 3D highways based on GPS tracks. Which country just might be delivering the JetPack of tomorrow today?

2) A finalist in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition, a kinetic mouse made from recycled materials has been unveiled –and wait there’s more - the energy to use it is captured form the clicking and scrolling of the mouse as it has an element within the body to harvest energy from movement, a similar setup is fitted to the scroll wheel and a piezoelectric element stores energy from each click of the left and right buttons. Regional material sourcing and assembly and end of life recycling add more green points to its credentials. The concept just missed the bronze medal in the audience category, but it is a winner in our mouse jockey race – what is it called?

3) By the age of six, he could exchange jokes in Classical Greek, memorize telephone directories, and displayed advanced mental calculation abilities, I was reading MAD magazine by the age of six myself, I recall. He was originally Hungarian, and is generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians in modern history who delved into quantum mechanics, game theory and computer science. A principal member of the Manhattan Project he worked out key steps in the nuclear physics involved in thermonuclear reactions and the hydrogen bomb.& one of the first 4 people with Einstein selected for the Institute for Advanced Study – His first major contribution to economics was the minimax theorem of 1928. & His last book published was The Computer and the Brain. Who was this genius who bridged many systems and branched knowledge with mathematical theory?

4) Oh those pesky Paparazzi ! Sometimes you just can’t avoid them. What are outlets to do when they need fresh images all the time? Enter the Papraazzi Bot! Autonomous robotic camerabots, designed at Ohio State University are a tech-hybrid both camera, and cameraman. They move at the speed of a walking human, avoiding walls and obstacles. As the robots work the room, infrared sensors move them toward humans, with the single goal of taking photos of people, mimicking the frenzied paparazzi. Later the images of those they’ve chosen to stalk are published to the web, where did they recently make their debut, and no it wasn’t at a Lady Gaga concert?

5) "M3" is short for "man-made man & are robot babies are under development with Osaka University. And no the Japanese aren’t trying to develop robot babies to alter the low birthrate in that country……not yet at any rate- M3-neony has been developed to research the development of fine motor skills like crawling thus hoping to gain knowledge on how humans develop physical skills . M3-synchy is used to understand verbal and non-verbal communication, primarily with its expressive face and arm gestures. Of course when your computer can learn to walk off your desk it might go straight to hell. There might not be any robot babies (gosh I love saying that,) in science fiction literature but robot children did exist in the 1967 short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long. Who wrote that?

6) This might come as a shock to our audience but there is pornography on the internet. The use of tricky or confusing URLs mean sometimes opening or downloading inappropriate images again VERY accidentally . And in some cases this material still exists on our computers…. Well folks fear no longer – this new USB stick is loaded with software designed to find and remove illicit images from your PC will protect your family, business or organization using a series of algorithms to analyze flesh tones, shapes, curvatures, and more What is this called?

7) More meatricity from the Greener Gadgets 2010 Conference... whose founder challenged designers to "put the sexy back into green. This won 2nd place – and is basically a portable rocking chair comprised of tubes and a sling seat that folds out to a bench-style glider seat. The rocking mechanism is linked to a gearbox, DC generator, voltage controller and lithium battery. it shows that kinetic energy is stored & that power is being generated. The energy is converted by means of a DC/AC inverter and accessed by a USB or standard power outlet so it can be hooked up to a laptop, mobile, MP3 player or other gadget. Perhaps it should have been called “Rocktricity” what is the name of this award winning char?

8) Cisco Systems, which is often referred to as the plumber of the Internet, announced today, a next-generation router for the world's largest ISP, the CRS-3. After weeks of hype about a major announcement that would change the Internet forever, it turns out the new product is basically an upgrade. The new router, which is sold to major Internet service providers, offers 12 times the traffic capacity and much faster too. John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, said this new router will serve as the foundation of the next-generation Internet that will see tremendous growth due to what?

9) The optical laser was deemed next to useless shortly after being invented 50 years ago. Two separate research groups have independently made important steps toward making - a type of laser that emits very high-frequency, coordinated sound rather than light waves. Despite some fundamental differences, light and sound waves are both formed by quanta, meaning that sound lasers are also possible. Sound propagates at a speed that is about 100,000 smaller than the speed of light, and therefore has a smaller wavelength & lower energy levels. Meaning sound lasers would allow extremely precise imaging of living tissue without damaging it in the process (as is often the case with optical imaging). What are high frequency sound lasers also referred to as?

10) The United Nations says that dirty water causes 80 percent of diseases in the developing world, killing 10 million people a year. What many people don’t realize, is that there are already naturally-occurring water filtration supplies available & remarkably In the form of a tree. Seeds from this tree, used as a paste will bind with impurities and can reduce bacteria in water over 90% . It also produces cooking and lighting oil, soil fertilizer, and highly-nutritious food in the form of its pods, leaves, seeds and flowers. It is drought-resistant & grows in Africa, India, South East Asia and Central and South America. What is the “world’s most useful” tree's name?

11) We spoke of Pranav Mistry’s breakthrough sixth sense last week and here is an outgrowth of that technology. A skin-based interface that effectively turns your body into a touchscreen. The system uses two technologies to turn your biggest organ into a workable input device with the ability to detect the ultralow-frequency sound produced by tapping the skin with a finger, and the microchip-sized "pico" projectors now found in some cellphones. The system beams a keyboard or menu onto the user's forearm, and hand from a projector housed in an armband.. Different combinations of the sensors are activated depending on where the arm is tapped. What is this system called which will be presented in April at the ACM Computer-Human Interaction meeting ?

12) It cost 5 Billion but oh dear missed its mark. Last May, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress that the Airborne laser's range was well short of the minimum requirement of 200 km. Future tests will try longer shots, but it looks like the chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) used just can't deliver death rays through the atmosphere. The laser's bulk has limitations and the nose on this transport only had Room for 6 of the 8 to 14 laser modules the design asked for. Oops. The project began in 1996 but just does not deliver. What was used to blast two missiles out of the sky?

13) A 4,000-year-old Greenland man just entered the scientific debate over the origins of prehistoric populations in the Americas. A nearly complete sequence of nuclear DNA extracted from strands of the long-dead man’s hair — the first such sequence obtained from an ancient person — highlights a previously unknown and relatively recent migration of northeastern Asians into the New World about 5,500 years ago, scientists say. His remains were found at a site from this culture, the earliest known people to have inhabited Greenland. What was this ancient Artic culture called?

The First Question - 2 March 2010

2010-03-06T04:40:00.001Z

This week's panel

Koach Ditko, Valiant Westland, Gus Plisskin, KarenKate Sands

Quotes

The secret of living in peace with all people lies in the art of understanding each one by his own individuality. -Friedrich Ludwig Jahn

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't. -Richard Bach

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. -William James

Word-UP of the week – “Damnitol” -- A prescription drug that I take when things just get too awful to bear and I just want to give up. -Koach Ditko

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) The company slogan is” Saving the earth- one Beer at a time” And if you want to feel good about yourself while tossing back a brewski but can’t always manage to separate the recyclables, this might just be for you, Eric Fitch believes he’s found a way to brew success by turning the waste grain used to make beer into clean energy. . This company is in the midst of constructing a 2 billion BTU digester adjacent to the The Magic Hat Brewing Co. in South Burlington, Vt., where it will take the remnants of the beer fermentation process and break it down into methane. What is the name of this 2 year old start up?

2) Google been compared to Wal-mart – but Wal-Mart does not have a green energy czar, and Google does – so there. They also have developed a prototype for a new mirror technology that could cut by half the cost of building a solar thermal plant, and have an internal prototype as of this writing. Google has been investing in companies and doing research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy, and wants to cut the cost of making heliostats, the fields of mirrors that track the sun. They might even be sold at Wal-marts one day, if this man can bring down the costs sufficiently enough - who is the green man at Google?

3) We had mentioned the use of UAV drones used in the military to help police find dangerous criminals in the UK now one has made its first arrest - Nicknamed "the flying saucepan" The drone was deployed to try to find an alleged offender who escaped in thick fog. Using the on-board camera and thermal-imaging technology, the operator was able to pick up the suspect through his body heat and direct foot patrols to his location hiding in bushes in Merseyside The battery-powered device is designed to hover almost silently above crime scenes and send live footage to officers on the ground, – how old was the culprit the police captured with military style reconnaissance?

4) This 1000-day mark might just be achievable, since this mission will be simpler & cheaper than one with a human onboard as there wont be life support systems, the spacecraft will therefore be a lot less complex. NASA has a cool video showing a robot landing on the moon which will be controlled by all kind of scientists using telepresence suits down here, all looking for interesting things using high definition visors, and able to move just like they would move on planet Earth. It won't work for Mars, but the communication delay of only three seconds will work beautifully on the Moon. What is the mission that will land a robotic telepresence on the moon in 1000 days?

5) It was way before ET was asked to call home, but this novel series from the late 50’s won a Retro Hugo Award. James Blish’s “Earthman, Come Home” describes the political and social conditions in the near future where entire cities could fly. The book is notable for the detailed way in which it handles technology, providing a mathematical explanation of the principles behind this anti-gravity device, the name of which became popular and was used subsequently. It was based on principles contained in an equation of a British physicist of the mid-20th century. Blish's take was that if rotation + mass produce magnetism via gravity, then rotation + magnetism could produce anti-gravity. The field created by it is described as altering the magnetic moment of any atom within its influence. What is this device called?

6). In James Cameron's hit movie Avatar, the Na'avi people of Pandora are able to "bond" with other creatures on their world, through the fine fibers at the end of what looks like a ponytail There is some research to suggest that bacteria living in ocean sediments connect to each other by a network of microbial nanowires, In a similar process discovered and called "electrical symbiosis". Researchers believe that these fine protein filaments move electrons back and forth, allowing a community of organisms to act like a single entity. . Where has this magic discovery been made?

7) This vehicle converts the rowing motion of the driver and any passengers into rotational thrust to charge a battery and power the vehicle in conjunction with an electric motor.Row row row your car! And as an added bonus can also be used to store energy and act as a backup power generator. The brainchild of Charles Samuel Greenwood who first hit upon the idea for a human powered car some 40 years ago. Sitting in a traffic jam in Silicon Valley.. While it is capable of reaching higher speeds it is limited to 25mph to comply with the Neighborhood electric vehicle classification. A report on CNN showed four people rowing for a couple of minutes generated enough electricity to power a PC for well over an hour. What is it called?

8) You live in a Western country and you feel charitable, but you want to feel that your contribution is going to go towards the good You want it to -On this site you're able to look through a list of dozens of projects and put your money directly into the ones that interest you the most, whether it's delivering solar-rechargeable digital hearing aids or getting solar study lanterns to students in Nigeria. It's quite an amazing array of emerging survival and sustainable living tools - It’s mission statement is to "connect breakthrough technologies with the people who need them the most" – and the website links producers with potential distribution organizations, while financing the buying through donations. What is the name of this brilliant philanthropic portal?

9) A United States Navy report recently indicated that, as military robots become more complex, there should be greater attention to implications of their ability to make autonomous decisions. This conversation started over 50 years ago. And In 1965, I. J. Good first wrote of an "intelligence explosion", suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unforeseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment them into far greater intelligences. In 2009, leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence researchers, and roboticists met to discuss the hypothetical possibility that robots could become self-sufficient and able to make their own decisions. What is the 5 syllable word describing robots becoming more capable than the humans who made them?

10) He is a thought leader whose interests in humanity and science run deep. He was a student of Alvin Toffler in New York City, where he was born. He is the developer of Trend Trakker, a systems-approach to geospatial data mining and forecasting . He is CEO & Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures He has advised three White House administrations. And worked on nanotechnology with the National Science Foundation. He is the founder of FutureLab, and also a part of the Singularity University, He is author of the books Technofutures and The Extreme Future. When Pooky recently read an interview with him about Surrogates their importance and future in our modern society, she knew he had to be an answer on the show. Who is “one of the world’s greatest minds” also known as Dr. Future?

11) Dr Canton continues to inspire through the next question- Fujitsu programmed 'independence.' And using "A-Life" technology, and it’s advanced computer research center a few years ago, created a computer pet for children ages six and older, a dolphin-bird creature who inhabits the beautiful and mystical planet Teo. No mere point-and-click cartoon figure; this has his own thoughts and feelings, and responds to others in his own unique way through the SmartSensor device, a small sphere which sits on top of the computer monitor and captures audio and motion commands. He is a unique creature which lives in a virtual world in the computer, has intelligence, emotions and personality, deepening his relationship with those who care for him What is this advanced surrogate pet called?

12)Using interpretation of "ambiguous designs" to assess an individual's personality is an idea that goes back to Leonardo da Vinci

The First Question - 23 February 2010

2010-03-06T04:33:00.003Z

This week's panel

DrM Magic, TributeTim Kwak, Saxet Uralia, Shock Soderstrom

Quotes

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.
-Henry Ward Beecher

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.
-Agnes Repplier

Word-UP of the week – “Saxadent Urina” - It's the wet spritz you get in your pants when laughing at Sax. I may have just had a saxadent urnina.
-Saxet Uralia -

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) As you might know I have a background in baking and once had in fact a cookie company, and although I got my start with Aunt Lee Millions of girls baked their first cookies, cupcakes and brownies because of this man who just passed. Upon returning to Cincinatti, this toy salesman wondered aloud whether his company could develop a toy version of the chestnut roasters seen in New York City. Much of his experimentation was conducted in his own kitchen before he finally settled on the concept that made the idea both safe and practical by deciding to use a light bulb to heat the oven. The Easy-Bake Oven entered the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2006. About 20million Easy-Bake Ovens have been sold – who invented it?

2) This has been swiftly and secretly negotiated by most of the first world and more Documents from these talks have leaked online, appropriately enough. Internet service providers could be compelled to constantly sift through their customers' data looking for copyright transgressions. ISPs told New Scientist in December that such technology will not only slow downloads, but puts in place technology that could be used for snooping and censorship. In France, the government has already introduced a measure along these lines. It was declared unconstitutional, but the government then amended it and introduced it again. What is the name of this International Act?

3) Billiards has a long and rich history from the wrapping of the body of Mary, Queen of Scots in her billiard table cover to the dome on Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello, which conceals a billiard room he hid, as this was illegal in Virginia when he lived there- now, The Dynasty is a very 21st Century take on the billiard table. At $100,000 It’s a very sharp looking centerpiece for the games room. And at that price should sharpen your cue stick for you -The owner of the first known indoor billiard table if he was alive today- would undoubetdly have one – who would that have been?

4) A tweeting tree has been presented at Sony Erisson and though we have done questions on plants that tweet when they need water before – this is a bit different. This Twittering Tree senses changes in the electromagnetic field around it as people pass, and sends Tweets that reflect its mood directly to its account, ConnectedTree “This tree also reacts to people’s presence and movements by playing music, speaking and turning on and off lights.” Where did the tree make its debut?

5) A case has been filed by Blake J Robbins against his childs school district in Pennsylvania - accusing School-issued laptops of spying on children both at school and at home. The suit states that Administrators were able to activate the laptop's webcam at will, and take pictures of children and their families. The issue came up when the Robbins' child was disciplined by the school for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. If this is the case, we were made aware of this by Cory Doctorow, writing in his 2008 book of what name?

6) Amazing visuals and they don’t only come out at night – MIT's SENSEable City Lab and Aerospace Robotics and Embedded Systems Laboratory otherwise known as ARES has created remotely-controlled, self-organizing micro-helicopters and each one has small LEDs and can act as a "smart pixel". They can be digitally synchronized to perform elaborate and synchronized choreographies" in three-dimensional space. According to the leader of the project E. Roon Kang - It's like when Winnie the Pooh hits a beehive: a swarm of bees comes out and chases him while changing its configuration to resemble different things- What is the name of the micro helicopters who create the big pictures?

7) It started as a solar powered device to make oxygen for breathing and hydrogen to power vehicles on Mars. It created a lot of buzz on 60 minutes too – It is electricity generating fuel cell box designed to sit in the back yard and provide enough power to reliably, more cleanly and cheaply power a house. it’s fuel cell is built from an extremely cheap ceramic material – sand. The ceramic disks that form the core of the Box are painted with special “inks” –. As the ions are pulled through the solid core, the resulting electrochemical reaction creates electricity. What is the name of this fuel cell that has been powering a Google data-center for the past 18 months, and which eBay claims have saved them over $100,000 in electricity costs .?

8) This is a recording technique in which a message is recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards. It has been a controversial topic in the United States since the 1980s, when allegations from Christian groups of its use for Satanic purposes were made against prominent rock musicians, leading to record-burning protests and proposed legislation by state and federal governments. Whether these messages exist is in debate, as is whether it can be used subliminally to affect listeners. what kind of technique is this called?

9) We spoke of d3o’s use in the Olyimpics and Spyders use of this remarkable material which actually is soft and flexible throughout the day, but hardens up instantly under impact. d3o's claim to fame is that it's made from a dilatant substance - that is, one in which viscosity increases with the rate of shear. it's highly flexible when moved slowly, but if you try to move it fast - for example, by banging it with a hammer, it hardens up. What is the very common household substance which when mixed with water shows the same principles, when stirring it slowly is easy, but as you try to stir it faster, it becomes very thick and viscous.

10)A company in Japan has developed a machine that shreds paper and then converts the waste into readily usable toilet paper. Shred paper, add water, and in about 30 minutes it is thinned out enough to provide you with one roll of toilet paper. It might not be Charmins- but it is a significant step towards a greener office space. The entire process is automated, so it's definitely a big convenience. Not the easy make or shake and bake Toilet paper house as it is kind of large in size-It's set to go on sale this summer in Japan for a price of about US$100,000. What is the name of this very promising piece of office equipment?

11) Hand sanitizers just took another leap forward - plasma quickly inactivates not only bacteria but also viruses and fungi... Plasmas engineered to zap microorganisms aren’t new. But use on human tissue took a leap of faith -Many thousands of volts drive the generation of plasma,” and normally one doesn’t want to touch thousands of volts.” During the last decade, they have come into use to sterilize some medical instruments. A researcher at the Max Planck Institute for what kind of physics put his thumb into a jet of microbe-destroying plasma at the lab to test & survived ?

12) Currently cornstarch is fermented and converted into ethanol, but ethanol derived from corn produces more greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline does. A recent breakthrough which can break down turn fruit peels using a plant – derived enzyme cocktail is proving very promising. Breaking orange peels down into sugar than ethanol could create about 200 million gallons In Florida alone. This Florida professor has as his goal gasoline as a secondary fuel. His team cloned genes from wood-rotting fungi and produced enzymes in tobacco plants . instead of manufacturing synthetics reduces the costs by a thousand times. Who is this ethanol visionary?

13) the greenest Olympics ever". Is what can be boasted because this waterfront building is housing the media hub for the Winter Olympics. When Vancouver won the competition to host the games, one of the most awe-inspiring initiatives has to be the redesign of this building- environmentally sustainable, boasting green electricity a seawater heating and cooling system and the largest "living roof" in Canada populated with 40,000 plants and grasses and its own colony of bees. It hopes to generate more than $2 billion in economic activity and to boost Vancouver's tourism industry. What is the first convention center in the world to be awarded Platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®)? (the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Center

The First Question - 16 February 2010

2010-02-24T22:48:00.001Z

Point of Interest

I would like to make a statement of the rules regarding show policy for The 1st Question - This is the section: Attendance Policy - We are a closed access - if you wish to bring someone onto the show in the audience please submit the name to Zoe Hexicola enolazoe@aol.com. The show is available to watch on the Internet live, but we need to screen our live audience.

Thank you so much for supporting the show and being a part of this. The Best Audience Anywhere!

This week's panel

Sonicity Fitzroy, Rhett Linden, RamonaPringle Avon, Roxxor Foxley

Quotes

All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgerize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level. -William Bernbach

Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned. -Emile Durkheim

Word-UP of the week - Reminiscience -- the science of fabricating and "inserting" memories for those who suffer amnesia or would like to replace personal, painful memories, with original, custom crafted narrative histories.-RamonaPringle Avon

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Advertising Research found that very few people are satisfied with the amount of family-oriented programming, And most parents would go out of their way to find better. In a marriage made in Family moment heaven, which is aptly enough the campaign title, two huge companies teamed up to produce "Secrets of The Mountain," a movie set to debut on NBC in April. . Name one or both of the two household names who are launching a marketing, in-store and digital initiative designed to promote family entertainment options, including a family game night - which of course The 1st Question hopes to be a part of.

2) This toy might ruin your life - but I sure wish I had it when I was a kid -Soon your every move can be captured Pre-loaded with three apps including night vision- kids can park the remote-controlled vehicle in a strategic location and lie in wait for unsuspecting family members. When the motion alarm app is downloaded the camera can be used as a sensor and they can also capture the person's photo, trigger the alarm and set off an audio alert Like "BUSTED!!" . The vehicle will then automatically return to the driver before it can be seized by the enemy. It be released in October of this year so you have until then Name this toy...

3) It is a six legged robot and was recently a star at The Emotibot exhibit running at the London Science Museum, as it has remarkable software that allows it to interact with human beings in an emotionally expressive way. If aggressively confronted, it backs away but If a person hold's it's gaze for a few seconds, their picture is uploaded to its website. Prototypes were used in the making of two Harry Potter films; they co-starred as Hagrid's pets. It is a six-legged robot invented by Matt Denton. What is its name?

4) It is an online publication with a low tech name though it is focused on anything but. Founded in 1996 by Dr. Thomas Pabst it is owned by Bestofmedia Group company, one of the top three online publishers for technology in the world. It provides articles, and a lot more on high tech The site features coverage on CPUs, motherboards, and computer peripherals.. Pooky learned how to build an LED nightlight from it. Though I don't think you used the "Build your Own computer" section Its readers are top of the line tekkies too - It is Published in several languages what is the name of it?

5) The ability to speak one language and have it instantly translated is a dream of tourists the world over - especially anyone visiting France. This company has something to help us in the works; they are building on their text translation software, which covers 52 languages, and on their voice recognition software. Progress in machine translation and voice recognition will make this happen sooner than later. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had the babel fish - & even The original Star Trek series featured a universal translator. What company might very well have a translator phone soon?

6) This new building material would be right at home in any Shire- Mushroom tissue will eagerly devour pasteurized wood chips. As the fungus digests and transforms, it solidifies into a mass of interlocking cells, slowly becoming denser and taking form. Like plaster or cement, mushrooms can be cast into almost any shape. Mushrooms digest cellulose and transform it into chitin, the same material that insect shells are made from. The skin itself is incredibly hard, shatter resistant, and can handle enormous amounts of compression. PS it is also nontoxic, fireproof and mold-resistant. What is the name of this architectural forms with fungus

7)They zap mosquito's don't they? Assembled technology used in printers, digital cameras and projectors can now shoot down mosquitoes by the hundreds in mid-flight. This was demonstrated at a TED talk by the way. After hundreds of mosquitoes were released into a glass tank, a laser tracked their movements and slowly shot them down anywhere between 50 to 100 mosquitoes per second. The laser detection is so precise that it can specify the gender. The company's head Nathan Myhrvold credits a 2008 brainstorming session on killing malaria-bearing mosquitoes with the idea for a 'Star Wars-style' anti mosquito weapon. what is the name of his enterprise?

8) Many magazines in the 19th century published series about that mythic time known as "the Future" germinating the genre which would become science fiction. This was published in 1898 intending to be a sequel to "Fighters from Mars",where it's hero travels- his inventions include the first dis-integrator ray This was perhaps the first space opera, although the term did not yet exist The book contains some notable "firsts" in science fiction: alien abductions, spacesuits (called "air-tight suits"), aliens building the Pyramids, space battles and oxygen pills. Written by Garrett P. Serviss what was it called?

9) Last year's winner was The Automist a major advance in home safety basically. A sprinkler system delivered through the faucet in your kitchen. The world's most prestigious student competition and though not a recruiting exercise, many entrants have gone on to work for its founder. and many others have quickly established new design practices as a result.- What is the name of this award which is currently accepting entries?

10) More data, faster computers Moores law and the need for more bandwidth has seen conventional wires impractical at higher frequencies. A possible solution is to use optics not just for sending data, but also to store information and perform calculations. If this to have a future, researchers will need to find a cheap and effective way to integrate optical and electronic components onto silicon chips. Disproving previous beliefs in the matter, MIT researchers have demonstrated the first laser built from this which can perform optical communications... This substance can be manipulated to work - what has been discovered to be "optics-friendly" possibly advancing out digital age?

11) Imagine being able to check your email on any blank wall, simply by drawing an @ sign in the air with your finger or Just put your thumbs and forefingers together to make a picture frame & snap. The inventor who presented at TEDIndia in 2009 was given last years Invention Award by Popular Science The latest prototype of 6th sense is a small camera which acts as a digital eye and projector combination (about the size of a cigarette pack) worn around the neck of the user. An accompanying smartphone handles the connection to the internet. "You can turn any surface around you into an interactive one, it is a wearable, gesture-driven computing platform that can continually augment the physical world with digital information. Who is behind this?

12)When giants collide - Facebook is clearly leading the pack in the mobile Internet race. Google likes to compete with a very clear elephant in the room mentality. And so the first salvo has been fired in the brewing war between Google and Facebook for social media dominance - Google has unleashed this real time, privacy killing, real time sharing, Picasa filling, conversation enabling and mega new user alert blaring service. It hasn't debuted to the best of press- what is it called?

13) The Economist described his influence 5 years ago and it still holds true but more so now-because he has become a major celebrity among geeks worldwide, who read his blog religiously. & Impressively, he has also succeeded where small armies of more conventional public-relations types have been failing - He is a legend, he is a measurable unit on twitter, an egoblogger and a genius- he helped his mother build mac computers starting at age 11. He launched fastcompany.tv and is the greatest technical evangelist there is - Who is in the top 5 of The 1st Question's most wanted?

14) The game, created originally in 1860 simulates a person's travels through his or her life, from college to retirement, with jobs, marriages and children (or not) along the way. This was the first game created by Milton Bradley, Like many from the 19th century, such as the The Mansion of Happiness it had a strong moral message. Essentially a modified checkerboard, The Game of Life in 1963 had some differences. and It was advertised as a "A Full 3-D Action Game." Sounds familiar - the original version however did not include dice, (to discourage any notions of gambling) but instead used a a six sided top called what?

15) In 1957, a market researcher claimed that quickly flashing messages on a movie screen, influenced people to purchase more food and drinks thus coining the term subliminal advertising. 5 years later he admitted to lying, the story itself being a marketing ploy. However, before the confession, his claims led to a public outcry, and to many conspiracy theories so the practice of subliminal advertising was banned. In 2007, to mark the 50th anniversary of the original experiment, it was recreated. As part of a "Hypnosis, subconscious triggers and branding" presentation for marketers. 1,400 delegates were exposed to 30 subliminal cuts over a 90 second period. When asked to choose one of two fictitious brands, 81% of the delegates picked the brand suggested. Who was the original Subliminal man, the market researcher who started it all?

The First Question - 9 February 2010

2010-02-24T22:40:00.008Z

This week's panel

Kenny Hubble, Charlene Trudeau, Arkowitz Jonson & Blotter Republic

Quotes

Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance. -W. Clement Stone

Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living. -Nicholas Negroponte

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. -Emo Philips

Word-UP of the week -“Impromptubleep.” A swear word or string of swear words created on the fly to fit a given situation -Charlene Trudeau

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) By 2030, a third of all Japanese citizens will be over 65. they're developing an astounding array of robotics to keep the country producing and are light years ahead of the West where all trends point to similar demographic trends. When you also need something to love, create a robot pet. and they have one that behaves as much as possible like a real animal, enjoying cuddles and pats, complaining for attention or 'food' (a battery charge), and reacting with fear and anger to being hit. Gradually learning to respond to whatever name you keep calling him, as well as various other audio cues. But without all the muss. Which animal not a cat or dog, was chosen to make your heart melt and keep you company?

2)It is a compound of almost pure silicon dioxide; the spray forms a layer that can be cleaned with water alone. It creates a film and over a sterile surface can provide complete protection. The patent for the technology is owned by a German company, Nanopool. It provides an easy-clean coating hundreds of times thinner than a human hair, protecting the surface against water, dirt, bacteria, heat and UV radiation. What is this substance the National health Service, a designer clothing company and a German branch of a hamburger chain are all investigating for use

3)Jim Morrison sang 'Come on come on and touch me baby” he might have been singing about the new multi touch technology which is both prevalent and popular. This Portuguese company has just announced the development of a “skin” based on capacitive technology, a thinner-than-paper polymer film that turns about any surface, into an interactive touch screen display. The technology works by a grid of nanowires placed throughout the film. These input signals are then passed to a microprocessor that analyzes the data and determines the exact location where the contact took place. What is the name of the company that has created hypersensitive lightweight “skin” with a transparency rate of 98% able to locate 16 fingers at a single time.?

4)In 1995 Sandia National Laboratories, bought one of the world's first commercial 3D haptic devices, and began developing software for it. Tom Anderson led the project until 2000 at which point he founded Novint which acquired an exclusive license and began commercialization. Novint developed the Falcon -which can be used to feel objects and events in video games, giving the player a more immersive experience. Now it has developed something ithat will track your spatial hand movements in 3D and activate your fave apps and media with a wave of your hand. The result is an intelligent product concept with unlimited possibilities. What is it called?

5)200 megabits per second for wireless data transfer was faster than what your grandfather might have seen however we have a whole new level of expectation today. This Electronic engineering company just broke their own record by achieving 500 Mbps using white LED light. Although invisible to the human eye, they can be read by a photodetector receiver, which converts them into electrical pulses. This type of data transfer is known as Visible Light Communication, or VLC. And when it comes to highly-sensitive data, VLC would be a good choice because its signal can’t be tapped. What company has broken its own record?

6) People in some developing countries have been known to walk for three hours just to find an outlet from which to charge a mobile phone, electricity is that scare . This four-girl team began as one of many groups in an engineering sciences class at Harvard. They created a prototype soccer ball that captures kinetic energy through an inductive coil mechanism when it is kicked or thrown, then stores it in an internal battery and makes that energy available for a myriad of small but useful purposes. In other words, it’s a fun, portable energy-harvesting power source What is the name of the team or the ball which will created energy?

7) Elysia chlorotica is unusual. Not content to eat algae that have mastered the art of photosynthesis, it actually appears to have stolen the genes that make it possible. It converts sunlight to energy all by itself. They can make their energy-containing molecules without having to eat anything, Under study for 20 years it has been determined that these multicellar animals have been able to produce chlorophyll. As long as a light is shined on them for 12 hours a day, they can survive without food. What kind of creature are they?

8)NASA and General Motors have partnered up before -in the '60s developing navigation systems for the Apollo missions, and also in the development of the first vehicle to be used on the moon – the Lunar Rover. Now they team up to build a new robot dexterous enough to use the same tools as humans, allowing them to work safely alongside humans on Earth or in space. Love the word safely. It can use its hands to do work beyond the scope of prior humanoid machines. Working side by side with humans, or going where the risks are too great for people, machines will expand our capability for construction and discovery. This is version 2. What is this robot called?

9) Hybrid cars and EVs rely on batteries for power, but batteries are bulky and heavy, causing the car to use up more energy. But what if a car's bodywork was made of a strong, lightweight material that could store and discharge electrical energy like a battery does? In pursuing this goal we could think wafer thin mobile phones and laptops that don't need a separate battery because they draw power from their casing. The prototype material is a composite of carbon fibers and a polymer resin which can store and discharge large amounts of energy much faster than conventional batteries. What college has its researchers all aglow on this new skin?

10) Colony Collapse disorder is potentially life threatening and not just to the bees- So the introduction of this bee might be a life saver. These bees are unaffected by CCD and they're better at pollinating than honeybees so you need less of them. Because they're fast fliers, and remain active in poor weather, instead of living in colonies with assigned roles, each bee lives an independent existence, and all the females lay eggs. And a great number of bees will gladly cohabitate in a relatively small bee house. Because they don't form societies, or produce wax, they don't live in hives. Instead, each bee finds an already-existent tubular hole and moves in with their Nirvana CD collection and begins to rock out. Sorry no, its not a dorm room – its a bee house, who lives there?

11)The worlds largest thought controlled experiment will be at the Olympics this year. And no its not a rematch of Tonya Harding trying to stare down Nancy Kerrigan. A Toronto-based company has used mind control technology to turn on the lights and is having a special display of this technology for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Their display allows visitors to control lights at Niagara Falls as well as Ottawa’s Parliament building and the CN Tower. Visitors will have to wear a headset to measure the brain’s alpha and beta waves, associated with relaxation, and concentration respectively. And these mental signals are then transmitted over the Internet to change the light patterns..This company is very interested as are we, in using thought control for all kinds of applications. Who are they?

12)For the second year in a row, Dunkin Donuts is inviting us to create our own personal donut, win $12,000 doing so and have this unleashed nationwide. Visitors to the company's website can create a virtual donut masterpiece from a variety of donut flavors, shapes, toppings and fillings now through March 8. Somehow I am not too interested in eating a virtual doughnut, but wait there is more! A dozen finalists will be chosen by a panel of Dunkin' Donuts judges to travel to Dunkin' Donuts University (where they teach sprinkleology) and even more! The Public will also be invited to vote for its favorite finalist &. The grand prize winner will be unveiled on National Donut Day. I know you all have it marked in your calenders- what day is it?

13) It is supposedly the most important number in the world – what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (not the number of donuts you can safely eat at one sitting) Two years ago, after leading climatologists observed rapid ice melt in the Arctic and other frightening signs, they issued a series of studies showing that the planet faced both human and natural disaster if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 remained above this many part parts per million. Everyone from Al Gore to the U.N.’s top climate scientist has now embraced this goal as necessary for stabilizing the planet and preventing complete disaster. what number is it?

14) It is a network of smell sensors that are attuned to particular chemical molecules. If a person walks past them with some sort of hazardous material - let's say, an explosive device - this tracks that person's movement and will alert security personnel . There are oscillating crystals on the sensor chips, and whenever the electronic noses capture chemical molecules, their frequency changes. . What is this smell system called that is capable of tracking hidden explosives?

15)Sonitus Medical is creating a revolutionary new hearing aid - This hearing system transmits sound to the inner ear via the teeth and consists of a small unit worn behind the ear and an in-the-mouth hearing device that is custom made to fit. The ear unit captures the sound and wirelessly transmits the signals to the mouth device, which sends imperceptible vibrations via the teeth. After the sound has been processed it uses a wireless chip to transmit the signals to the in the mouth device – what is this product being marketed as?

16) Commander Shepard, leads a crew of operatives from around the entire galaxy on a potentially suicidal mission. Its not a movie its Electronic Art's new game. BioWare had been promoting the event through its 5 million registered users, as well as through Twitter and Facebook. These kinds of titles have broadened the appeal and relevance of gaming overall within pop-culture while demonstrating that some game releases can even surpass the revenues generated by the movie industry. As competition heats up for consumer share-of-mind, bigger splash is needed to announce new gaming titles – which sequel debuted recently from BioWare?

17) A one-of-a-kind "personal Internet viewer," this device is designed to let you pull all sorts of information from its 7-inch touch screen. Not portable: it's designed to be placed in your bedroom, kitchen or office, where you can choose among 1,000 (and counting) completely free applications using your Wi-Fi Internet connection It also supports multiple user profiles and channels, so different household members can create and maintain their own customized views of the Internet and check for them in an easy way. Unveiled at CES 2010 by SONY what is it called?

The First Question - 2 February 2010

2010-02-04T19:05:00.002Z

This week's panel

Gary Bukowski / Jenette Forager / Spiff Whitfield / CathyWyo1 Haystack -

Quotes

“Great minds have purpose, others have wishes.” -Washington Irving

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." — Dr. Seuss

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." — Dr. Seuss

Word-UP of the week - “Purgadigatory” - that dark place where your avatar gets stuck when you tp..somewhere between where you were and where you wanted to teleport to -CathyWyo1 Haystack -

"Freepurposing": The act of freeing any system, device or content from its intended purpose, and re-applying ? it for a completely unintended purpose which is usually much more fun. Example: Rick Astley.-Gary Bukowski -

Audience Quote of the week“I’m not flirting with you; I’m just recharging my laptop”-Tomkin Euler

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) We said iPad last week, and indeed that was the name – though the observation that there were no women in the room during the naming session was obvious. At least they didn’t call it MyPad. However, a Japanese technology firm and a Swiss semiconductor company both have trademarks for iPad. These kinds of naming conflicts have not stopped Apple before. In 2007, on the eve of the introduction of the iPhone, another technology giant pointed out that it already sold an Internet handset called the iPhone. Steven Jobs, , led the negotiation for the name, calling executives at all hours of the night finally persuading them to surrender the trademark with a vague promise to market their products jointly — a partnership that never materialized. What company gave jobs the rights to iPhone?

2) The Sound Reactive Nightgown uses a shape-memory alloy that when you yell, speak or make noises in the vicinity of this dainty garment, it starts lifting up provocatively. Keep talking might have a whole new meaning with sound activated clothing. Wires are in it which are made up of a shape memory alloy that returns back to its original form when stimulated. Dynalloy, Inc. manufactures these nickel titanium wires under this trade name to differentiate them from other ones which do not have these same properties. What is this shape shifting alloy called?

3) Panopticlick is a unique website that pulls information you didn't know you had about your computer that all websites can see, and then displays it for you, giving a uniqueness score — letting you see how easily identifiable you might be as you surf the web "Panopticlick" appears to be the mating of Panopticon and "mouse click". The Panopticon was designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1785; what is it?

4) Concrete is the world's third-largest source of man-made carbon dioxide. I A few companies are now using different technologies that not only make concrete carbon-neutral, they actually make it carbon-negative. One company in California is converting the carbon in industrial flue emissions into concrete and asphalt by running them through pH-adjusted seawater. Then solidifying the minerals to be used as cement plus neutralizing other pollutants such as mercury. The company is Calera what pilot project is tying out this process?

5) You are out pushing the stroller and let’s face it you have to check your email or send a tweet- what is a mother to do? Well now you can, easily as this product has been created. It’s a phone-holder that clips to your stroller’s handle bar and makes it easier for you to text or email while you're out and about - but please wait until the stroller is stationary before using. It can fit almost any device that has a handle bar, such as a bike, exercise equipment and even a shopping trolley. What is this product, sure to increase communication but possibly not personal safety, called?

6) When you are at the Olympics, things get highly competitive, and the gain of seconds in time means the difference between gold and coal. This company has completely redesigned its athletic wear for Vancouver. They use d3o whose molecules flow under normal movement, but lock together on impact to spread the force. They refined the surface texture to shave off precious hundredths of seconds from racers’ times, a margin by which many ski races are won and lost. And moved padding to reduce the amount of thread, seams and needle holes on the outside fabric, all of which can contribute to wind friction. What company is going for the win with their new Speed Suits?

7) Energy-harvesting rubber sheets that are implanted in the body may power pacemakers and even mobile phones. The material, composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded onto silicone rubber sheets, generates electricity when flexed and is highly efficient at converting mechanical to electrical energy. Shoes made of the material may one day harvest the pounding of walking and running. Placed against the lungs, sheets of the material could use breathing motions for power . What is the term for that which generates an electrical voltage when pressure is applied to it?

8) Recent research with this compound has been shown to enhance learning abilities and memory in rats. Yes just what we need smarter rats for smarter rat neurons to power smarter robots. But I digress. This is an essential element and health professionals say people who get less than 400mg a day are risking allergies, asthma and more “Half the population of industrialized countries have a deficit in this, which only increases with aging. If normal or even higher levels can be maintained, age-related loss of cognitive function can be slowed. A new compound might help increase plasticity in connections among neurons. What kind of compound found in spinach will this be?

9) Leading to neurology-inspired computers, as well as provide a means for connecting artificial devices to existing biological tissue, researchers in this country have created what they claim is the first transistor to mimic the connections in the human brain. The team, from its national science and atomic energy commissions called a nanoparticle organic memory field-effect transistor “NOMFET". A biological synapse transforms a voltage spike into a discharge of chemical neurotransmitters that are then detected. What country is responsible for this next very significant leap in the artificial brain sweepstakes?

10) Righteous Fur, a New Orleans-based grassroots movement, is hoping that its marketing efforts can raise awareness of a problem. A little hungry herbivore introduced from Argentina back in the 1930s, weighing about 12 pounds each, have chomped their way through some 100,000 acres of coastal wetlands since 1998. And while trappers earn a $5 bounty for each one they destroy, the pelts are often discarded. If a market for the fur for these little varmints can be created the wetlands will be saved! And positioning fur as environmentally correct isn't novel –"Fur is renewable, sustainable, and biodegradable," What is the animal that Righteous Fur hopes to make its poster child?

11) This alarm will wake you up with a very distinctive smell and has been in development for two years. Tested on sleeping people with normal or no hearing at all the device woke nearly all subjects up within two and a half minutes after the stench hit their nostrils. The alarm is not big and works on a room that's roughly 50 square feet. It was launched in 2009 by a Kobe-based fire extinguisher company. What is the basis of this odoriferous alarm?

12) In The Fifth Element, a hovering Chinese junk comes right to your high-rise apartment window to serve you a fresh meal. Well ironworkers on the new Freedom Tower will not have Chinese but they will have lunch delivered. This restaurant made of shipping containers will move up it’s side as it is being constructed, providing food. They'll be stacked on a hydraulically powered platform. The resulting three-level structure will house the restaurant complete with kitchen for fresh baked bread. As the tower grows, it will "jump" to the next new floor. What restaurant chain is delivering on high?

The First Question - 26 Jan 2010

2010-01-28T09:19:00.002Z

Ahoy all – with a new year and new website upon us, yes please check out the new Treet.tv website, We are going to name the episodes by their dates only!

A NEW DAWN

This week's panel

Kurt Karsin / Scarlett Niven / LANCE Rembrandt / Gary Broono

Quotes:

“Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow.”
~Fernanda Miramontes-Landeros

“Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means.”
~Robert Louis Stevenson

Word-UP of the week – “Legibrawl” Ok, every now and then you see some you tube video or some story on CNN with a bunch of people in the parliament of some foreign country duking it out in the middle of a session. I call this a Legi-brawl, using the words and Legislative and Brawl. Used in a sentence: The members of the British house of commons got into a Legibrawl.
~Gary Broono

Audience Quote of the week
“You are obviously using the banana wrong”
~Crap Mariner

Questions:

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Internet access from outer space – yes it has happened – Hello Twitterverse!” he wrote. “We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s” Before, orbiting astronauts had to send such Twitter updates by e-mail to Mission Control . This direct ability will help alleviate the astronauts’ profound sense of isolation. Give us each day our daily Tweets. Who is the Space station resident who was able to establish Internet access from his orbital post ever since he moved in last month?

2) Apple’s announcement of its tablet computer tomorrow will without doubt be the most eagerly anticipated tech news of 2010. Odds on what the name will be have been on offer at Irish bookmaker Paddy Power this week and when the Economist ran a story on what it might be, the odds on this name shortened from 7/4 to 1/3 in a few hours. Obviously there are hundreds, if not thousands of people across the world who know it already, because they have been involved in manufacturing, or creating promotional collateral. It’s not exactly insider trading – but making book on what name seems a good idea?

3) An ionospheric research facility it is jointly funded by the US Air Force, Navy, the University of Alaska, and DARPA) for communications and surveillance purposes. The facility currently operates a VHF and UHF radar, a fluxgate magnetometer, and a digisonde. It became the subject of controversy in the mid-1990s, following claims that it’s antennas could be used as weapons. It has been called "the Moby Dick of conspiracy theories" and has been blamed for much. Variously described as a missile defense shield, a death ray, a tool of the Antichrist, a worldwide communications jammer, an apparatus that can cause the Earth to spin out of control, and was also blamed for the recent earthquake in Haiti. What is it?

4) An autonomous surveillance platform that was developed in Afghanistan, it will soon fly over the UK for routine monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, and anyone else the Home Office deems in need of watching. Police authorities hope to have them approved and ready for the 2012 Olympics. A national drone plan with BAE, documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, shows use could span a range of police activity – and officers have even talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. What is the name of this drone?

5) It is building a mind-reading scanner that can tell if a given traveler is a potential danger - without the subject's knowledge - using biometric sensors. The system ... projects images onto airport screens symbols only a would-be terrorist would recognize. The logic is that people can't help reacting,, to familiar images that suddenly appear in unfamiliar places. The reaction could be a darting of the eyes, an increased heartbeat, a nervous twitch or faster breathing. This system would rely mostly on hidden cameras or sensors that can detect a slight rise in body temperature and heart rate. What is the technology company called behind this?

6) It is traditionally used to treat phobias like fear of heights or flying. Now it will be tried on soldiers returning from Iraq who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Recreating 360-degree, interactive computer-generated environments, it will expose the patients back into the environment and experience where the trauma occurred. It is hoped this will help reduce anxiety as it’s designed to promote a multi-sensory emotional connection to the memory, Behavioral health providers have treatment options for Soldiers but what is this now receiving a lot of attention?

7) SF writer William Gibson included the idea of synthespians in his 1996 novel Idoru: as we have mentioned in a previous show . James Cameron, director of Avatar, has been quoted as saying that the same technology that animated the Na'vis from Pandora could also be used to bring beloved actors back to the screen. Remember Max Headroom? He was Matt Frewer in makeup to represent a CG character. And he was a spoof of this President of the synthetic actors’ guild who promised that humans in makeup will no longer take work away from synthetic actors."The word "synthespian" was coined by Jeff Kleiser. Kleiser and Diana Walczak created the first digital actor for their 1988 short film- What was it?

8) Space divers are risk takers - and one will attempt a parachute jump from a balloon suspended 121,000 feet over the surface of the Earth later this year. After floating up for roughly three hours, Felix Baumgartner will step off, potentially breaking records for the highest parachute jump, as well as the fastest and longest freefall. He will face extreme peril. He should reach supersonic speeds 35 seconds after he jumps, and the atmospheric pressure is so low that fluids begin to boil. "If he opens up his face mask or the suit, all the gases in the body go out of suspension, so he would literally turn into a giant fizzy, oozing fluid from his eyes and mouth, like something out of a horror film, and it’s just seconds until death. Felix will attempt to break a fifty year-old record set by which US Air Force Captain who jumped out of a balloon at an altitude of 104,000 feet?

9) It is a space-cannon proposed by a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist. This 3,600-foot gun could make deliveries to an orbiting space station for just $250 per pound - compared to $5,000 per pound costs for delivery by rocket. Note to Felix Baumgartner - don’t expect to ride this thing: The gun produces 5,000 Gs, so it’s only for fuel tanks and ruggedized satellites. “A person shot out of it would probably get compressed to half their size so it’d be over real quick.” Hot hydrogen would boost the payload exiting the mouth of the gun at 13.000 mph. What is this called?

10) Mahru-Z is a walking robot maid with a rotating head containing a 3-dimensional sensor so it can figure out what work you need it to do. It can pick up your house, dump clothes into the washer and heat meals in the microwave. It is a bipedal, humanoid robot a little over 4feet tall; and weighs just 121 pounds. The most distinctive strength of Mahru-Z is its visual ability to observe objects, recognize the tasks needed to be completed, and execute them. Robotic maids have been depicted before - what was the name of the robot maid in the Jetsons cartoon show?

11). The dress has its own nervous system, which allows the wearer to control the emotional wellbeing of the garments. The approach to fashion design introduces the living garment. A micro pump represents the ‘heart’, micro tubes represent the ‘veins and arteries’ and various biosensors mimic the senses. Fragrances are actively 'pulsed' electronically through a micro cabling system in the fabric web. The fabric emits a selection of scents to eventually replace the traditional perfume bottle. What is this called and/or who is behind it?
12) The Wrap 920AR glasses prototype features cameras mounted to lenses that project real world images onto LCD’s inside the glasses, seamlessly mixing real-world and computer generated imagery. The glasses have a camera on each lens that captures video which can also be viewed in stereoscopic 3D. The cameras project real-world imagery giving the effect of watching a 67” display from ten feet away. And can be overlaid with CGI effectively creating an augmented reality. How about being on SL while you walk down an actual street? Not yet but it will be great for education. Who is making these new glasses for roughly $880USD?

The 1st Question 78 - 5 Jan 10

2010-01-09T22:34:00.002Z

Living La Vida Ava

Quotes

“A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective. “-Edward Teller

"Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit."-Bern Williams

Word-UP of the week – Taitalium, ( tie-tail-ee-um) the hairiest element known to science, named for our Chow Chow, Tai Shan [Peace Mountain in Chinese]- Squiffy Rogozarski

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) It has developed a prototype remote control that allows users to operate electronic devices telepathically -- simply willing the television channel to change or the air-conditioning to turn on The brain signals are sent by optical fiber to a remote control, which is prompted by significant brain activity to beam infrared signals. Blood flow increases considerably with mental activity.. The technology for such a device had existed for some time, but this weighs about 2.2 pounds, while other such systems are the size of a refrigerator, and difficult to wear on your head- which company is in charge of this?

2) This will establish the largest free trade area in the world in terms of population and the third largest in terms of volume – aptly coming into effect new years day for the dawn of a decade very likely to see this segment of the world rise up to prominence. The initial framework agreement was signed in 2002 in Phnom Penh, with the intent on establishing a free trade area now in existence among eleven nations in this region. What is it called?

P:3)This was one of the robots that debuted as the robotic bartender most likely handle the second coming. It performs the miracle of transubstantiation, using the energy which flows through its circuitry to convert water into wine. Drinkers are invited to place their grail below its wound spigot and then pour pure water into its holy funnel (located on the upper left shoulder), while repeating the following prayer: O Roomba, O microwave,I forsake thee!Gloria in anthropos deus.In Nomine Asimov, et ASIMOet Robosapien,Amen! What is this Miraculous robot called?

4) Fantastic dress that would be right at home on the grid – for the NYU Winter Show, Elisabeth Fuller designed the fully programmable "Life Dress". . So you can wear it with the pattern or message of your choice writ large by the LEDs embedded in it. It is made up of silicon tiles each infused with it’s own LED light –The unlit squares are also a bit translucent, which in the right (or wrong) places could send the strongest message, but nude is the new black this season. What kind of skin covers it's silicon tiles?

5) We are not as cool as we might think certainly under pressure. And our behavior might give us away especially when we are planning a large scale attack upon crowded places. How can the authorities capitalize on our significant stress? With a next-generation device able to autonomously identify and track individuals that act suspiciously in crowded public spaces. Using algorithms that profile behavior in public, it identifies 'typical' behavior to single out the suspicious. It can even follow a target as they move in a crowd. What is this human tracking device called?

6) On New Years Eve, this man pulled off the world's longest car jump at the Red Bull: New Year. No Limits Party in California. He set a new world record of 269 feet, extending it by 43%. He has also been the first to achieve a front flip on a motorcycle, the first to achieve a double backflip, not to mention being the first person to jump out of a plane without a parachute, jump into the Grand Canyon off a motorcycle and the first (and quite possibly the only) person to ever backflip a kid's tricycle. Who is the man you want to invite to your backyard BBQ when you unveil your new trampoline?

7) Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies will release a small home hydrogen refueling and storage solution at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this week that could begin our transition to a hydrogen-based economy. The HYDROFILL is a small desktop device that plugs into the power supply, a solar panel or a small wind turbine, and automatically extracts hydrogen from its water tank and stores it in a solid form in small refillable cartridges. The cartridges contain metallic alloys that absorb hydrogen into their crystalline structure, a storage method which the company claims offers the highest volumetric energy density of any form of hydrogen storage, even higher than liquid hydrogen. From what country is HYDROFILL leading us?

H:8) It’s a new facebook app and its going for socialized blogs via a virtual online global community with an option to switch to a 2.5D habbo style environment & Simple enough graphics for widespread use. It allows for Avatar creation (Think anime adorable) and of course your choice of rooms. Once that's done you can explore real-life locales as you chat friend and share blogs. What intends to launch on Facebook this spring with privacy concerns high on the list?

9) We are possibly not involved enough emotionally with our day to day objects so says a contribution to the 13 visions of the future for the French Alliance's La Fin Du Design exhibition . Haptic, thermal and olfactory sensations are all involved while playing games, watching movies and shopping online as a hand sheath will stimulate nerve receptors recreating the pressure, temperature, roughness, etc of an object being viewed on what it has been wirelessly linked to. It will also feature six flavor cartridges & features micro emanators reproducing different types of smell. What is this called, that might out do the feelies? (The Sense concept)

10) A leading figure in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain, he was instrumental in the foundation of the Labour Party. his publication of Civilization, Its Cause and Cure proposed that civilization is a form of disease that human societies pass through. A strong advocate of sexual freedom, he lived openly gay. The last twenty years of his life were marked by his persistent involvement in progressive issues; He argued passionately that the source of war and discontent in western society was class-monopoly and social inequality. A true radical in his own lifetime, who was he?

11) Powering a low energy device by using a wind-up mechanism has of course been around for centuries. But for a new decade a very green alternate to power consumption for one of the most widely used devices of the modern age, The computer mouse Rather than drawing energy from a computer or batteries. You would need to remove a key from below the Sustail mouse and wind it up before being able to use it. It is hoped that this would also encourage users to take regular breaks and have a more responsible attitude towards power consumption.. What company’s department is currently testing the wind up mouse for feasibility?

12) This company has made another important step toward creating faster, higher-efficiency "3D" processors stacking their cores vertically. We are entering the time where more and more processing power will be needed. Single core will be giving way to multi core and use of the z-axis is being explored. Power consumption, memory usage and parallelism all are reasons to stack up. Working on this technique can ensure data transfer rates ten times higher than ever before. Which company is working with the Swiss on this?

13) Connected every moment of everyday – it is a wonder that headsets wont soon be implanted directly into the brain – well that’s next. You might already have it on your iPhone, PSP, or desk phone, but 2010 looks to be the year of this -enabled in the pipeline for a Spring release on your HDTV. These HDTVs will feature a built-in 720p webcam and a microphone designed to ensure you don't have to move to be heard. HD video functionality has been added in – What will be on your HDTV soon?

14). We like our words electronic and we want them now. At just over a quarter-inch in overall height, the device is the thinnest e-reader announced to date. It features the largest and highest-resolution electronic-paper display too . . The device weighs just over one pound and lasts over a week of average use between charges. It is the first consumer product to feature the next-generation of e-paper display – one based on a thin, flexible sheet of stainless-steel foil. This contrast with the fragile glass that is the foundation of almost every electronic screen What is it called?

15) During an experiment with whipped cream canisters and funnel cake — don’t ask—a better idea was stumbled upon: putting pancake mix in pressurized cans. Through word of mouth, social networking and publicity stunts — rallying a team to cook 76,382 pancakes in eight hours to set a Guinness World Record — Sean O’Connor has gotten this new food product into Costco and Whole Foods stores. 20 million in revenue later - what is this breakfast in a can called?

The 1st Question 76 - 15 Dec 09

2009-12-18T19:01:00.002Z

This week's panel

Mo Hax, Jianna Zerbino, Jessica Qin, Tomkin Euler

Quotes

(Special Kudos to Gary Broono is is rapidly becoming our new King of Quotes! He got both this week.)

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
Plutarch

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
Paul Valery

Word-UP of the week – A TIE! “Idslexia “ - Misreading a headline but realizing your subconscious mind is actually giving you the real story. Ex: it says "APD starts new anti-drug program" but you read "APD starts new anti-drug pogrom" -- or "President flies to summit committee" but you read it as "President lies to summit committee". Jessica Qin

“Chatatonic” - The appearance of your avatar when someone walks up to you in SL, tries to engage you in chat, bumps into you, but you're lost in 3 separate IM conversations, you're trying to find something in your inventory, and you have a couple tabs open in your web browser... then your antivirus software starts an update...-Tomkin Euler

Audience Quote of the week –“ You shoulda heard me cursive when I stubbed my toe”-MenuBar Memorial

Questions:

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) When a baby plays with this, their actions are associated through gizmos on their first dashboard, a modified Fischer-Price toy which has been souped up with electronics. Yes, it will send an email when baby is looking at a picture of you- & if more than one baby is hooked up to it the baby can join a social net and activate the flashing lights on their peers machines too – sort of a virtual playgroup. What is this device called?

2) Faster and faster as a new unified wireless specification will provides data transmission rates of up to 7 gigabits per second – more than ten times that of current Wi-Fi. It will only work over short distances, so it's better as the perfect way to wirelessly connect home media devices. 30 companies including Dell, Microsoft, Intel and Samsung are members. It's aiming towards a single wireless industry for the first quarter of 2010 – What is this alliance called? A new speed for a new decade?

P3): Its on the Surface of Mars, and isn’t going away- Of interest to astrobiologists because organisms release much of this on Earth's through their digestion of nutrients, Scientists think there may be microorganisms living far below the planet's surface where liquid water may exist & Extraterrestrial life itself may be producing this. Scientists have shown that the level of it on the Red Planet can't be explained by meteorites in the atmosphere. What is it that NASA and ESA scientists who are planning a joint mission to the red planet in 2018 to search for?

4) A Top salesman for IBM he filled his year's sales quota in two weeks, founded Electronic Data Systems in 1962- and became the biggest individual loser ever on the New York Stock Exchange" when his shares dropped $450 million in a single day . He supported the Environmental Protection Agency and wanted to enact electronic direct democracy when he ran for president. But withdrew-We might never know the whole story but he remained in the public eye after the election and championed opposition to NAFTA, urging voters to listen for the "giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading south. He has dropped out of political debate but he does blog. Who is he?

5) This is a Robotic Weapon Designed for law enforcement situations like riot control or other hostile or covert situations, or when you can’t stand to see fear in the eyes of your victims. It boasts of affordable, remotely-operated, electric vehicles designed to go where it is difficult, dangerous, hazardous, lethal, toxic or just too messy for humans to go”, and has a wireless control range of around 700ft. For the next insurgency, what will be attacking the front lines, remotely driven and gushing out pepper spray, for a start, following up with rubber bullets?

6) Recently MIT found that this substances impurities could be manipulated for atomic scale magnetic fields, leading the way in spintronics - What is now being used to generate magnetic fields strong enough to consistently manipulate nitrogen defects in this crystal in just under one nanosecond, by purely electrical means opening the way to mass production of a true general purpose quantum computer?

7) Gender, was thought to be caused by environmental factors, such as passion of sex, nutrition and temperature. These theories had their roots in Aristotle over 2000 years ago. One of the first American women to be recognized for her contribution to science. Her discovery based on insect observation was the first of its kind linked to gender. Basically, sex dependency is signaled by the presence or absence of the Y chromosome. She did not start her research until her thirties and completed her PhD in 1903. Who was this early American geneticist?

8) The citrus grows on a shrub or small tree with long, irregular branches covered in thorns. The fruit has a thick peel, only a small amount of acidic flesh (if any) and is juiceless and sometimes seedless. It is very fragrant and is used predominantly by the Chinese and Japanese for perfuming rooms and personal items, such as clothing. It has fingers which open are like a goblin’ fingers another name for it, and which closed resemble hands in prayer. The fruit may be given as a religious offeringn its origin traced back to Northeastern India or China. What Deity is it named after?

9) It is an artificial intelligence program that autonomously seeks working equations to describe
data from experiments. The program begins by examining the data for numbers that appear to be connected, and then suggests equations that fit the connections. Of the proposed equations most fail, but some are less wrong than others, and these are selected and modified and then repeatedly re-tested again. It was able to calculate in hours equations that Newton took years to find, and hopes it can do the same for the interactions between proteins, genomes and cell signals, which are so complicated that describing them mathematically has so far been impossible. What is it called?

10) As the United States raced to build its first atomic bombs near the end of World War II, scientists wanted to know more about the hazards of this. Testing began on April 10, 1945 with injections into the victim of a car accident in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to see how quickly the human body rid itself of the radioactive substance. That was just the first of over 400 human radiation experiments. Common studies included seeing the biological effects of radiation with various doses, and testing experimental treatments for cancer. Records of this research became public in 1995, after the U.S. Department of Energy published them. What were the injections of?

11) It is a moldable silicone modeling clay that sets tough and is flexible allowing users to modify or repair just about anything. Coming in a range of colors this Play-Doh-like material boasts the potential to be used to modify and fix. it is self-adhesive, waterproof, flexible, dishwasher-proof and is highly temperature resistant. Its creators say this can help decrease your carbon footprint on the world by countering the disposable society and letting you repair things that previously would have ended up discarded. What is this new miracle clay called?

12) A five-foot-wide pipeline with an intake hundreds of feet below the sea will pull in cold water, which will circulate through air-conditioning units around this city. A $240 million project, will expect its technology to cut air conditioning electricity usage by up to 75 percent while slashing carbon emissions and the use of ozone-depleting refrigerants. Cold deep-sea water will be used to cool buildings where?

13) The Neurostar Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation system is a nonsurgical device that uses a magnetic coil in a headpiece to stimulate the left prefrontal cortex....the mood center...with electromagnetic waves using short pulses to stimulate nerve cells in this area. The treatments stimulate the production of dopamine. It seems to work in clinical trials. It's the first of its kind to recieve FDA approval. And will run you $6000 for a full course of treatment. Ren and Stimpy first brought us the concept in the 90’s What was their original cartoon concept called?

14) The U.S. Navy wanted to boost sailors' night vision so they could spot infrared signal lights during World War II. However, infrared wavelengths are normally beyond the sensitivity of human eyes. Scientists knew this contained part of a specialized light-sensitive molecule in the eye's receptors, and wondered if an alternate form of it could promote different light sensitivity in the eye. They fed volunteers supplements made from the livers of walleyed pikes, and the volunteers' vision began changing over several months to extend into the infrared region. Such early success went down the drain after other researchers developed an electronic snooperscope to see infrared, and the human study was abandoned. Other nations also played with it during World War II. What was fed to Japanese pilots as well improving their night vision by 100 percent in some cases?

15) He was a passionate smoker, and a martial arts fighter, themes that ran through his science fiction novels for which he won the Nebula award three times –Part of The New Wave that included Philip Dick, he was Ohio – born. He also worked the lost, god-like father theme. He was a member of Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s.. His crisp, minimalistic dialogue also seems to be somewhat influenced by wisecracking hardboiled crime authors, such as Chandler or Hammett. This tension between the ancient and the modern, surreal and familiar was what drove most of his work. Who wrote the Amber series?

The 1st Question 75 - 8 Dec 09

2009-12-14T19:57:00.002Z

This week's panel

Onder Skall, Doctor Rodenberger, Paolo Rousselot and AmericanActionHero Janick

Quotes

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man dies. Not every man really lives.
-William Wallace

Word-UP of the week – “Transfixia” – The feeling after you come out of a really really intense movie, when you walk outside and you still feel that you are in the movie.
-Doctor Rodenberger

Audience Quote(s) of the week
“There were people in South America before 20,000 yrs ago”
-Delia Lake
“Let me ask my dad, he might know, he's real old”
-Gary Broono

Questions:

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Today a new game to raise energy awareness among young people has just been launched. Called Facebooks first serious game, EnerCities just went beta. However, the fastest growing social game in history, is a real-time simulation. It allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, trees, and livestock. Created by Zynga, and not without controvesy, what is it called?

2) True to California’s goal of increasing its reliance on a diverse supply of renewable energy at reasonable costs and risks to ratepayers, Pacific Gas & Electric is agreeing to buy power generated from the first-of-its-kind project. A Space-based solar power has been researched in the U.S. for several decades. The experimental technology uses orbiting satellites equipped with solar cells to convert the sun's energy into electricity and converts that into radio frequency energy that can be transmitted to a local receiver station. Which California-based company is actually faced with the task of getting the out-of-this-world project up in the air, to provide 1,700 gigawatt-hours of energy per year?

3) Cory Doctorow is a Canadian blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He dropped out of four universities without attaining a degree.. He was named a Fellow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And recently became the first Independent Studies Scholar in Virtual Residence at the University of Waterloo. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Doctorow's first novel, was published in 2003, and was the first novel released under one of the Creative Commons licenses. The original “Down & Out in “novel was written by a genius of Science Fiction, his first novel too. It is a story in two parts on the theme of poverty in two cities.- what is the full name of that title from 1933 and who wrote it?

4) It could one day be used as a lightweight battery to power devices now enabling the printed word to be eclipsed by e-mail, e-books and online news. Scientists at Stanford reported last week they have successfully turned this substance coated with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials into a battery that holds promise for new types of lightweight, high-performance energy storage. This type of battery could even be useful in powering electric or hybrid vehicles, would make electronics lighter weight and longer lasting, which has been an obstacle to commercial viability. What is this new battery made out of?

5) When transforming thermal into mechanical, the efficiency of a heat engine is the percentage that is transformed into work. That heat emanating from your computer as you are watching this show is wasted energy. More than half of the energy consumed worldwide is wasted, most of it in the form of excess heat. In experiments involving new technology, an MIT research team has been able to demonstrate much higher efficiency ultimately in waste-energy harvesting in everything from computer processors to car engines to electric powerplants. What It is the 19th century principle, the basis of the second law of thermodynamics, which sets a limit on the maximum amount of efficiency any possible engine can obtain?

6) Interactive telecommunications researchers have designed a soil-moisture sensor device that can allow a house plant to communicate with its owner. The device can send short messages to a mobile phone or even Twitter. The messages can range from reminders to water, a thank you or a warning. To communicate, probes in the soil emit electric waves. A voltage level based on the moisture content is sent through two wires to a circuit board. A local network receives this data and allows the plant to send a message. What is this little micro-controller hooked up to your plant named?

7) Stationed at the European Marine Energy Center Billia Croo site near Stromness, it was installed this year and is, at present, the world’s only hydro-electric wave energy device which is producing power. Pumping high pressure water to its onshore hydro-electric turbine which feeds into the national grid to power homes. There are minimal moving parts and all electrical components are onshore, making it robust enough to withstand the rigors of Scotland’s harsh seas whose waters hold around ten percent of Europe’s wave power and as much as a quarter of its tidal power potential. Marine energy might meet up to 20 per cent of the UK's energy demands producing sustainable zero-emission electricity to power homes. What is the world’s largest working hydro-electric wave energy device called?

8) Citrus waste is usually a complete write-off in the compost game because it contains an antibacterial substance which slows its breakdown, but a team in Sweden has discovered that these acidic skins have more uses than they receive credit for. Limon, an antibacterial agent, pectin, a gelling agent, biogas, and ethanol, can be produced from new patents. Florida is also developing plans to build a commercial plant that will convert orange and grapefruit waste into ethanol that will be sold to Florida motorists at gasoline pumps. The plant is expected to produce about how many gallons of ethanol a year?

9) This versatile humanoid robot can see (via two cameras), will react to touch, can surf the Web and can interact with others of his kind. He can speak (in English or French, so far) by reading out any file stored locally or from a RSS flow. The bot is fitted with an accelerometer and gyrometer so he won't fall down.. His software even lets you recover photos and video stream of his vision. Let us not even go into his hardware. He can interpret his surroundings & detect faces and shapes, even recognizing the person talking to him. Who is he?

10) As art museums go, it has a very small collection. Literally. Presented by the Institute for the Promotion of the Less than One Millimetre, it is an online “portrait” collection of mini- and micro-organisms photographed through a microscope. Inside the virtual museum’s halls you can find a zooplankton family portrait next to the glowing image of a mother copepod posing with her children (Okay, her children are actually egg packages). Each collection features an array of exhibits with titles such as “The Hall of Arthropods”or the “Water Flea Circus”. All of the tiny subjects were photographed alive. What is this museum called?

11) Solar Impulse's HB-SIA solar-powered airplane was runway tested last week. The prototype aircraft is made of lightweight materials, weighing only 3,500 pounds and it has a wingspan of 210 feet. It is powered entirely by the 11,000 solar cells covering its wings. It is intended to fly at only 28 miles per hour to keep energy consumption low. It will store solar energy for night flight The Founder of Solar Impulse is a former astronaut and the first man to circle the world nonstop in a balloon. He hopes to perform the same feet in a solar-powered plane-Who is he?

12) Neuroscientists have demonstrated how brain waves can be used to type alphanumerical characters on a computer screen. By merely focusing on the "q" in a matrix of letters, for example, that "q" appears on the monitor. A mind-machine interface from electrodes placed directly on the brain are much more specific than data collected from EEG, in which electrodes are placed on the scalp. At what clinic are brain waves telling us the secret letter?

13) This power plant guides sea water and fresh water into separate chambers, which are divided by an artificial membrane. Salt molecules pull the fresh water through it, increasing the pressure which is then utilized in a power generating turbine. Statkraft claims this has the global potential to generate clean, renewable energy equivalent to China's total electricity consumption or half of the EU's total power production. In theory, such power plants could be located wherever sea water and fresh water meet, such as the mouth of a river. They run without producing noise pollution or polluting emission, what is the principle behind this membrane technology?

The 1st Question 73 - 17 Nov 09

2009-11-19T22:09:00.002Z

This week's panel

Chris Ebi, Hiro Pendragon, Christopher Express, Wiz Norderg

Quotes:

“The cure for boredom is curiosity; there is no cure for curiosity”
- Dorothy Parker

The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules.
- Gary Gygax

Word-UP of the week – A Tie!
“Smeet” verb - To meet someone in real life that you've known online. (Smeet = Second / Meet contracted together) Origin: SLCC 1, 2005, New York Law School. Hiro: There needs to be a word for when you meet someone you've already known. Like meeting for the second time.

Philip Rosedale: Smeet?

Hiro: Yeah!

-Hiro Pendragon

“Treadulous” adj. - 1. A discussion or topic which has been discussed many times before, especially when it involves tedious discourse repeated ad nauseum. 2. A person who often engages in such discussions.
-Wiz Nordberg

Audience Quote of the week – “I'm creating my own show for idiots like me.. It will be called "the next question, please"
-Gary Broono

Questions:

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Silicon could soon be replaced- with low-cost printable electronics. This process will offer manufacturers an inexpensive way to add “intelligence” or computing power to a wide range of surfaces like electronic clothing. Integrated circuits are currently manufactured in costly silicon chip factories. The difficult challenge of developing conductive electronic inks that work in an ordinary, everyday environment has been solved by Xerox developing what substance for printing plastic circuits?

2) Ant colonies aren't called superorganisms for nothing. The original Borg, millions of individuals can act as a single entity. Over 200 different species are called "Army Ants", no surprise that these mechanisms have been used for the basis of new software that helps troops to define the best path within a battle field. At what university has the "ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO)" been developed for maximum speed and minimum casualties.

3)Manny Pacquiao, who has done politics, acting, filmmaking, and music recording is really a professional boxer, and the only boxer to win seven world titles in seven different weight divisions . A first and the equivilent of a pugilistic polymath. He has held or holds the champion title for junior welterweight, Lightweight, super featherweight, Featherweight, Super bantamweight, Flyweight and one other class. He is rated by Ring Magazine as the #1 pound-for-pound boxer in the world. Although in these weight categories I might say ounce for ounce. In What division does Manny currently fight in to win?

4) Smart contact lenses with virtual reality graphics and information just got a step closer. Adding a power harvesting antenna to contact lenses with microcircuits, this harvests radio waves to power a LED and pave the way for a new kind of display. The University of Washington is behind this project & tested the lens on what animal?

5) Ever been stuck in an airport with no where to sleep? Looking similar to a white desktop computer’s tower, people will be able to rent the facility in terminals for between 15 minutes and several hours. It uses soundproofing to keep the noises of the airport out. Bed sheets are automatically changed via the winding of one roller to another akin to a conveyor belt, and it comes equipped with an LCD display, Wi-Fi access, luggage space and loads of power outlets for charging laptops and mobile phones. What is this called from Russia with Snores?

6) The Air Force is looking to harness advances in bio-science so they can “degrade enemy performance and artificially overwhelm enemy cognitive abilities.” By analyzing the biochemical brain pathways of troops who are cool under pressure, the Air Force wants an “external stimulant” that can act as a synthetic version of optimal cognitive stress response and keep airmen operating at top level, then reverse it on the enemy. In the 1970s and 80s, a small group of special operations soldiers at Ft. Bragg supposedly tried to teach themselves how to kill with psychic power – This forms the basis of what movie out now?

7) Using a computer, engineers draw a three-dimensional object. The drawing is sliced into layers which a beam traces. Meanwhile, metal wire, such as aluminum or titanium, is fed into the beam to build the layers. Heat from the beam reaching 3,000 degrees — briefly liquefying the metals before they settle into the desired shape. Astronauts could use the beam to create tools and spacecraft parts thereby avoiding the cost of sending extra supplies into space. It cost $2.5 million- what is it?

8) Tattooing dates back to at least Neolithic times but this is not your great great great grandaddy’s tattoo. Today it’s possible to get ink that glows under UV light, but a new technology could see tattoos that emit their own light & pave the way for embedded LED tattoos. For futuristic illuminated designs that can be animated to move across a person’s body, or for medical applications. On what will these tattoos be imprinted, then implanted into your body completely dissolving harmlessly?

9) It is a humanoid robot used for testing chemical protection clothing for the US Army & does lots of things that soldiers will be expected to do while wearing them. Essential in simulating how a soldier stresses fatigues under realistic conditions. The robot will have the shape and size of a standard human, making it the first anthropomorphic robot that moves dynamically like a real person. What is his affectionate sounding acronym?

10) A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up. These giants weighing up to 450 pounds, up to 6 feet in diameter are swimming rampant costing Japan over $330 million dollars a year in damages. .These gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide. Scientists believe climate change — the warming of oceans has allowed it to spread and thrive – what is the name for the world’s largest jellyfish?

11) It came from beneath the climate change - The United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop15) will take place this year in Copenhagen from December 7th through the 18th, and willhave a significant presence in SL too. - A patent for interactive TV that could allow viewers to participate in the events on the screen has been filed relying on a type of interactive overlay , perhaps generated by a video game console. Typically passive TV watchers will then use avatars to interact on-screen as the action plays out behind them. For example, racing real drivers in real races from the comfort of your couch, tossing virtual tomatoes or giving B-movie actors a swift kick in the pants. Extreme interaction includes adding "shootable" virtual characters on top of a war or action movie. But when they go down, will they stay down? What company has filed a patent for this?

The 1st Question 72 - 10 Nov 09

2009-11-17T09:49:00.002Z

This week's panel

In Kenzo / Clint Peccable / Kate McLaglen / Eyebeams Electricteeth

Quotes

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
-A. J. Liebling

The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith.
-John Foster Dulles

The most important political office is that of the private citizen.
-Louis D. Brandeis

Word-UP of the week – “Wheelbarrowism” - Sticking to the theory that the universe is just a large wheelbarow at the bottom of a supreme beings garden
-Clint Peccable

Audience Quote of the week –
You actually have to do something in the future
-Hiro Pendragon

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) It is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures working to reduce the danger of armed conflict. Founded in 1957, it followed the release of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto which called for a conference of scientists to assess the dangers of weapons of mass destruction It’s first fifteen years coincided with many international crises so it played a useful role in opening communication channels during a time of otherwise-strained relations, In 1995, fifty years after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with its founder Joseph Rotblatt who said "Remember your humanity" great words, in what mission do they lie?

2) Commercial flies, tiny insects that carry advertiser messages, are science fiction; everybody knows that. Philip K. Dick wrote about this idea in his 1966 novel The Simulacra: Apparently, nobody told THIS German publisher, which released hundreds of houseflies with TINY ultralight banner ads glued to their hind ends WITH A BIT OF SEALING WAX to promote their table at the Frankfurt Book Festival. Somehow I don’t think this would go over as well with an American crowd. Which book publisher let the flies out?

3) It is an European space mission, expected to be launched in the Spring of 2012, and will be operated to compile a catalogue of approximately one billion stars creating an extremely precise three-dimensional map of our Milky Way galaxy and beyond, creating a kind of universal positioning system (I would use UPS but that has been taken) This massive stellar census will provide the basic observational data to tackle origins, structure, and evolution of our Galaxy. What is the name of this mission that seeks to unlock the positions of the stars?

4) ) An Australian physicist and humanitarian played a fundamental role in nuclear fusion and the development of the atomic bomb, the first to discover heavy hydrogen nuclei could react. This fusion reaction is the basis of a hydrogen bomb, and it's discovery purely, coincidental. In November 1943, he moved to work on the Manhattan Project as part of the British delegation. but it made him uneasy and he preferred to concentrate on uranium-235. He became a harsh critic of nuclear weapons and a member of Pugwash . Who was right from the beginning, worried by the existence of nuclear weapons and very much against their use?

5) She was a French playwright and political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings reached a large audience and led unfortunately to the guillotine for attacking the regime of Robespierre, during the Reign of Terror. She is best known as an early feminist -In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen- Article 10 contains the famous phrase: “La femme a le droit de monter l'échafaudage; elle doit tout aussi avoir le droit de monter l'estrade.” If women have the right to be executed, they should have the right to speak. She was alarmed that the constitution, which was to promote equal suffrage, did not address—nor even consider—women’s suffrage. Who was she?

6) Australians were the first to use this to educate isolated children often miles away from the nearest school. The Royal Flying Doctor Service begun in 1928 established a large pedal powered radio network across the outback, . An influential Adelaide schoolteacher, made the proposal for this to be set up through the radio network and in 1950 the first lesson was broadcast. Now 12 Schools and 1000 students take part and teachers still use high frequency radio to provide lessons to their students with newer technologies such as email, computer links, video and the Internet. What is this school called?

7) I know you all can’t believe this kind of thing exists but Love Plus is a new Japanese dating simulation for the Nintendo DS that requires a fair amount of interaction between you and your simulated date. There is this part where you can hold hands on the touchscreen, if you touch your dates hand with the stylus. And then there's the part where you can kiss by putting your fingers to their lips. This scifi writer popularized the idea of a relationship with a virtual person in his 1996 novel Idoru, in which a virtual person seems so real. He wrote of personality-constructs & synthespians (great word) Who was it?

8) When European Union officials first discussed the idea of a massive solar power plant to provide power to all of Europe, many people took it as a plan that was far too outlandish to ever come to pass. But now a consortium is dedicated to pushing the project ahead. The Desertec Industrial Initiative aims to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity by 2050 or earlier. They will need evidence that the project won’t suffer due to local political instability or terrorism threats. Where will this $400 billion project, using new high voltage direct current cables to bring the power to Europe be built?

9) A small dashboard robot created by MIT’s Media Lab reads the driver's mood from facial expression and other cues. It responds in a socially appropriate and informative way. When it merges knowledge with an understanding of the driver’s priorities it will have figured out your home and work locations helping you achieve more energy efficiency and safer behavior.” Not a backseat driver, but a friendly dashboard assistant, you could actually chuck out the window if it became too irritating. What is it called?

10) One of the first physicists to be publicly troubled by the philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics was Einstein. In 1935, he co-authored a paper which was intended to show that Quantum Mechanics could not be a complete theory of nature. That something else would have to be invoked. What challenged long-held ideas about the relation between the observed values and those accounted for by a physical theory, we are looking for the name of the paradox or argument?

11) In an astonishingly productive career, he invented many devices, but never once applied for a patent. He wrote in 1893, ” Excellence will always defy competition." He was also a passionate believer in scientific communication as a key to furthering progress. Open Source science we would call it today. He is credited with the First powered flight in 1894- and built the world's first box-kite, hitched four together, added an engine and flew it five meters. Modest, unassuming and unselfish, he was only anxious that he might succeed in adding to the sum of human knowledge. Who was he?

12) Frederick Pohl was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group - Black Widowers. He collaborated on a dystopian satire of a world ruled by advertising agencies, called The Space Merchants. But in this excellent tongue-in-cheek story he pillories the “Consumer Society.” So many goods are produced that people are obligated to consume - and in doing so you could graduate to higher levels of society, where you might actually have fewer things and more time to yourself. And to achieve this, you could get robots to do your consumption for you…. In what book is the measure of wealth how FEW goods you are force-fed?

13)The 2009 Global Green Challenge, has a winner, After covering almost 1800 miles in four days across Australia's baking red center, This team's run was nearly flawless, reporting only a single flat tire and the win breaks a string of four consecutive victories by the Dutch Nuon team. A total of 32 solar vehicles from 16 countries made the start about 10 days ago. This car covered in solar panels, placed fourth in qualifying but took the lead on day one and extended its advantage all the way to the finish line. Which country took the victory; it’s first from this nation since 1993?

The 1st Question 71 - 27 Oct 09

2009-10-28T22:54:00.000Z

This week's panel

Gatsby Crumb, Marian Sapphire, Chrome Underwood, John Zhaoying.

Quotes

In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.
Hugh Walpole

Never forget that the most powerful force on earth is love
Nelson Rockefeller

I have made good judgements in the past. I have made good judgements in the future.
Dan Quayle

Word-UP of the week – “Kleptography” - the process of lifting images from a myriad of sources in order to re-assemble them in a new form, usually as a work of art. Also known as Photoshoplifting.
Chrome Underwood

Audience Quote of the week – “Prepare to flatten your funk, fritter your feckles, and flip your flume!”
Troy McLuhan

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) That trees can “self-preserve” in such a humid climate as Norway and for centuries was news to scientists who recently dated trunks seeded in the early 1200s. The substance, responsible for that fact has been around for a very long time, and its conservation abilities have been known for millennia. It was one of the ingredients used in Ancient Egypt for mummification, a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, valued for its chemical uses, such as varnishes and adhesives, and also as an important source of raw materials for organic synthesis, or incense and perfume like frankincense and myrrh. Fossilized it is the source of amber.. What is this that also acts as a material in nail polish?

2) Scientists discover that this is the only known cancerless animal, and it has two-tier defense. Despite a 30-year lifespan that gives ample time for cancer cells to grow it has never been found with tumors of any kind. Its cells express a gene called p16 that causes cell proliferation to stop when too many of them crowd together, cutting off runaway growth before it can start. The animals are strange, ugly, nearly hairless mouse-like creatures that live in underground communities. Unlike any other mammal, these communities consist of queens and workers more reminiscent of bees than rodents. What animal might provide a breakthrough for cancer research?

3) A deep hole has been found in the Moon's surface; scientists believe it may be an opening into a vast underground tunnel. The moon seems to possess long, winding tunnels called lava tubes that are similar to structures seen on Earth. They are created when the top of a stream of molten rock solidifies and the lava inside drains away, leaving a hollow tube of rock. Their existence on the moon is hinted at based on observations of sinuous rilles – long, winding depressions carved into the lunar surface., The hole is thought to extend down at least 80 meters and possibly as wide as 370 meters across. Which space Agency just found them?

4)It is a new German newspaper - that's printed news, not online - that will print you a unique paper each morning according to your personal preferences. Philip K. Dick fans have their own name for a custom-printed newspaper; it's a homeopape: To create yours first choose from among a variety of print and Internet news partners, selecting the topics you are interested in and the sources you prefer. The resulting newspaper is printed out overnight and delivered to your mailbox first thing in the morning. The paper is being rolled out in the German capital on Nov. 16 The daily paper will cost under 2 euros.$. What is the first "customized" newspaper in Europe called?

5) Consider that 100,000 people around the world tomorrow will suffer epileptic seizures. That probably doesn't trouble you tremendously. Now imagine that one those 100,000 people will be you. In that case you probably would be troubled. We have a tendency to think that what we care about is important in and of itself.” A new book, "On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects," takes a distinctly different view on the fact that we care so much about ourselves, telling us something deep about the world: What is the word for the philosophical idea that one's own mind is all that exists?

6) Professor Kevin Warwick and his merry team at the department of Cybernetics, University of Reading have already created several versions of a rat brain-controlled robot. The rat brain-controlled robot has an actual, living brain consisting of rat neurons. The cells are removed from rat fetuses and then disentangled from each other with an enzyme bath. The next step in their research is to use cultures available on the open market, saying the ethical side of sourcing is done by the company from whom they are purchased. And they don’t need approval from the university or government - From what will the new neuron cell line come from, controlling the next gen of robots??

7) Crystals in gel are being touted for computer memory storage which could lead to densities one hundred times greater than today's technology. The development could allow users to store a terabyte of data in a space the size of a sugar cube within a decade. This would be enough to hold the equivalent of 250,000 photographs or a million books. Compared with the flat two-dimensional surface of a CD, three-dimensional units use many more layers, in which tiny crystals could act as storage points. Information would be recorded in a similar way as on CDs - by making marks in a pattern, which are read using light. At what university is this fantastic research being done?

8)Possibly Europa's ocean may have enough oxygen to support life: a frozen moon is believed by scientists to have a liquid water ocean several miles underneath its frozen surface; the water kept in a liquid state by heat generated from tidal forces. Science fiction fans observe this with delight, having seen this idea popularized a quarter-century ago by Arthur C. Clarke in 2010: Odyssey Two. Clarke himself credits the idea of life in Europan oceans to a 1980 Star and Sky article by this man titled The Europa Enigma. Whose idea was panned by most planetary scientists and NASA as well. Who was it that Clarke enthusiastically supported immediately.

9) It is a new device by electronics giant Philips and ABN Amro, a financial corporation, designed to warn online traders about exuberant or despondent emotions that could affect their decision-making abilities. As a wearer's emotions grow more intense, lights flicker faster on the bracelet and the colors change from a soft yellow to orange to a deep cautionary red. Philips Design has long been investigating possible uses for emotional sensors. Last year it teamed up with ABN Amro, which wanted to educate its clients about how to make better investment decisions. 'Driven by fear, traders may sell too hastily when share prices drop. Driven by greed, they may be overenthusiastic.' Although there are no immediate plans to release the device for sale to the general public, Philips does expect this technology to emerge in the next few years. What is this electronic device called?

10) 3D printing technology has arrived big time. This leverages 3D source data, which often takes the form of CAD models that have quickly become the standard for nearly all product development processes... In addition to mainstream applications in mechanical and architectural design, 3D printing has expanded into new markets including medical, molecular, and geospatial modeling. 3D printers use standard inkjet printing technology to create parts layer-by-layer by depositing a liquid binder onto thin layers of powder. It claims a vertical build rate of about 1-2 inches per hour. But at $26,000, it's an amazing technology. The company claims that it has the world's only full-color 3D printer doing rapid prototyping in color.What is it?

11)It will open on November 12 and if there was ever a place that cried out for a Second Life counterpart this is it. . This institution, with its own unique financial instruments, is the brainchild of a conceptual artist and backed by private Swiss funding. It intends to offset materialism with modern science, by exploiting the economic potential of antimatter, which is the physical opposite of anything made with atoms, from luxury condos to private jets." The bank will serve as a hub for antimatter transactions worldwide, The new currency will be issued in three convenient denominations, ranging from 10,000 positrons to 1,000,000 positrons. The anti-money will be backed by antimatter stored in the bank's own vaults.. Antimatter being a natural haven for wealth when everything becomes worthless. Where will the First Bank of Antimatter be located?

12) Fashioned from 36 brass fins arranged in the shape of a hand-held fan, each fin is approximately 20 centimeters long and three millimeters thick. Ultrasound and underwater sonar devices could "see" a big improvement thanks to development of this, the world's first. Created by researchers with the DOE, it provides an eightfold boost in the magnification power of sound-based imaging technologies. The key to this success is the capturing of information contained in evanescent waves, which carry far more details and higher resolution than propagating waves. What is this ground breaking piece of engineering called?

13) This is not one of those pokey amphibious cars from the 1960's. It can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds on land, and up to 60 mph on the water. Total cost: about $220,000. Boat manufactures using lightweight high-performance automotive-type engines and Car manufacturers incorporating light-weight marine-type alloy bodies and chassis. Gave Dave March vision to see high-performance cars that were also high-performance boats, an automobile capable of getting to plane on top of the water and reaching freeway speeds! What is the name of this amphibious vehicle?

14) A portable microwave generator and hand-held antenna are used to seal wounds, binding the edges of the wound together using a biodegradable protein sealant or “solder”. This method could be used for repairing wounds in emergency settings, by restoring the wound surface to its original strength within minutes. To date, over 200 tests have been performed. Once sealed, the effectiveness of wound closure was measured using a tensile strength meter. Welds stronger than the uninjured (uncut) muscle have been consistently and precisely achieved. Although this technology would have many applications, it is being developed as life-support technique for who, what or where?

15) The enigmatic maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) - and the unique spiraling pattern with which they glide to the ground - have intrigued children and engineers for decades. Researchers first tried to create an unmanned aerial vehicle that could mimic a maple seed's spiraling fall in the 1950s. Now aerospace engineering graduate students have applied the seeds’ design to airborne devices and created what they believe to be the world's smallest controllable single-winged what?

16) “The great city bazaar crushed it country rivals with branch stores, and in the city itself absorbed its smaller rivals till the business of a whole quarter was concentrated under one roof, with a hundred former proprietors of shops serving as clerks “- From this famous 19th century utopian novel, aristocrat John West suffers from insomnia. He consults a hypnotist and sleeps until the year 2000. He finds many wonders there, among them a vast number of shops all under one roof. This is an amazing prediction of the rise of stores like Walmart. Published in 1888, it inspired utopian living experiments. Which book became so popular, in 1900 that it was only outsold by Uncle Tom's Cabin?

The 1st Question 70 - 20 Oct 09

2009-10-25T15:51:00.002Z

This week's panel

Colossus Linden , Zinnia Zauber , Keystone Bouchard , Judi Newall

Quotes

They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
Jean de la Bruyere

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Oscar Wilde

Word-UP of the week - "Mumffuling" - wandering about aimlessly but happily, not doing much of anything.
Judi Newall

Audience Quote of the week – Best quote ever "Who the heck stuffs snow in to a chicken?!"
Zen Paine

What we do with the 90% of the brain we are allegedly not using -Mind is not limited to the brain - the remainder of the human electrical system interacts interdimensionally (the multidimensional human) We will learn to be more aware of this over time & generations.
Caprica McCallen

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

P:1) There is a new UK-based business website that provides you with four random camera feeds. Should you come to believe you are seeing a) shop lifting, b) burglary, c) vandalism or d) anti social behavior, you can press your alert button. Internet Eyes discourages the idea that their service "is creating a “snoopers paradise”, although users will be strictly anonymous and the person who catches the most miscreants will be awarded a 1,000 pound prize each month. Although there isn’t much in literature on citizens snooping on one another through camera feeds, a 1954 novel has a totalitarian, book-burning government looking for the novel's hero, who is on the run for reading books and directs its citizens saying – “The fugitive cannot escape if everyone in the next minute looks from his house. Ready!" set spy! – What very famous book is it?

X:2) He just makes his fellow billionaires look bad. His philosophy “I had one idea that never changed in my mind — that you should use your wealth to help people", led him to set up his charity. He also said “Money has some attraction for some people but you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time” – He transferred the bulk of his wealth to the foundation and gave it away. He made his billions in airport duty free shops. Up to 2005, his foundation had given away over are you sitting down? $3.5 billion- Who was the greatest donor of all time, an anonymous man?

3) In 1903, At 31 Horatio Nelson Jackson differed with the then-prevailing wisdom that the automobile was a passing fad, the plaything of rich men. While in San Francisco Nelson took a bet to prove that a car could be driven across the country. He accepted even though he did not own a car, had practically no experience driving, and had no maps to follow. The young mechanic he convinced to accompany suggested Jackson buy this car. So He did, a slightly used one, bade his wife goodbye, and left San Francisco. They arrived in New York City almost two months after they left. Their trip expended over 800 gallons of gasoline. There were only 150 miles of paved roads then in the nation total, no gas stations, road maps or mechanics. In what car did he drive?

4) This country’s car-makers push their plans to increase sales and give motorists more electric and hybrid-powered vehicle choices, and its Government has added its support by announcing intent to spend the equivalent of $2.2 billion on creating a battery-charging network for them across the country. The government says it will also make the installation of charging stations obligatory in new apartment blocks with parking lots. The money will come from a strategic investment fund. Which country is taking this great drive forward?

5) Nanobees are nanoparticles laden with this peptide, an ingredient in bee venom that is known to have therapeutic uses. Its use in medicine has been minimal due to the fact that it does damage to healthy cells as well. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis came up with the nanobee idea as a way to get it directly to tumor cells. This also exhibits potent anti-microbial activity on the bacteria that causes lyme disease and yeast infections. What do the nanobees deliver?

6) An organism in a cryptobiotic state can essentially live indefinitely until environmental conditions return to being hospitable. Tardigrades are known for their virtual indestructibility on Earth. Scientists have reported their existence in hot springs, on top of the Himalayas, under layers of solid ice and in ocean sediments. And can survive in a vacuum and a European Space Agency experiment has also shown them enduring ultraviolet radiation and cosmic rays. They are the first animals known to be able to survive this and might be made to behave like quantum objects too soon What are these tiny but very mighty creatures also called?

7) Legend has it that the Irish warrior Finn McCool built then to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. It is a remarkable geological configuration, of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, and recently named as the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Managed by the National Trust, it is the most popular tourist attraction in Northern Ireland, what is it called?

8) He turned to medicine at 16, achieving full status as a qualified physician 2 years later. A polymath in Islams. Golden Age, he wrote the Canon of Medicine, a remarkable medical book known for its introduction of quarantine, experimental medicine, clinical trials, neuropsychiatry, risk factor analysis, diagnosis of contagious diseases & more . He viewed color to be of vital importance in diagnosis and treatment, and also developed a chart that related color to the temperature and physical condition of the body. The first color therapist, and a legendary doctor- who was he?

9) You couldn't ask for a more accurate description of a hologram than the one in this book “The telestereo, a glass disk, inserted in the room's floor, was initiated by a switch. Instantly there appears, the image of a man in the blue and white robe of the Supreme Council, a lifesize and moving and stereoscopically perfect image, flashing across the void of space by means of etheric vibrations. Through the medium of that projected image the man himself could see and hear as well as Jan Tor could see and hear him." From what 1928 novel does the telestereo derive?

10) Ever since the Rubik’s cube took the world by storm in the 80’s there has been a steady stream of puzzles looking to capture the public’s imagination. The latest brainteaser to take a stab at puzzling glory is this, a cylindrical device that has been individually milled from a solid block of metal, and that features an internal labyrinth which must be navigated to remove the metal core. You must solve a maze that you can’t see, relying on your memory of incorrect moves to get you through to the end. What is this fun for the whole family device called?

11) This country has the only fully rotating hotel building in the world - and the way they've done it is fascinating. Its smaller "revolving loft" is an engineering marvel and a pinnacle of luxury. Featuring only 24 rooms, this cylindrical tower cost $12 million to build & to accomplish this; the entire building is floated in a special pool system containing 470 tons of water. The lower three floors are submerged under the water, while the upper 3 floors are treated to a slowly rotating panoramic view of the area. In what country is this floating hotel?

12) The competition concluded this weekend, and its pretty big for user created content, NASA, offered the prize. Their motivation simple: being able to dig on the moon. Future lunarnauts will “live off the land” by excavating useful materials, such as oxygen and even recently discovered water. Home-built moonbots raked, scraped and dug their way across an artificial lunar landscape in California pursuing a half-million-dollar prize. Hobbyists from Los Angeles became the first ever to meet the minimum qualification & a group of students from Worcester tech took the prize the first since it was launched 3 years ago. What was the challenge?

13) In the mid-1800s neuroscientists discovered cells in the brain that are not like neurons (the presumed active players of the brain) and called them thus, the Greek word for “glue.” Even though the brain contains about 10 times as many as neurons—the assumption was that those cells were nothing more than a passive support system. They are really busy multitaskers, guiding the brain’s development and sustaining it throughout our lives. They also listen carefully to their neighbors, and speak in a chemical language of their own. . What does the brain contain a trillion of that have many different functions from immune system to scaffolding?

14) The magnetic equivalent of electricity, dubbed "magnetricity", has been demonstrated experimentally for the first time. Just as the flow of electrons produces electrical current, individual north and south magnetic poles have been observed to roam freely. Magnets normally have two poles, north and south, that are inseparable. That is true all the way down to its individual atoms, since each behaves as a tiny bar magnet with two poles. - Many of physic’s grandest theories require single, freely moving magnetic poles to exist and in this type of magnetic solid monopoles not bound in pairs move independently of one another, forming inside a crystalline material called what?

15) Before him, everyone assumed that cells got their energy using straightforward chemistry, generated from food by a series of standard reactions. This man thought otherwise. Life, he argued, is powered not by the kind of chemistry that goes on in a test tube but by a kind of electricity. He dubbed his theory chemiosmosis, and it is not surprising that biologists found it hard to accept. It might be counter-intuitive, but this has turned out to be ubiquitous in the living world. Living power drives not only cell respiration, but photosynthesis: energy from the sun is converted into a proton gradient in essentially the same way as the energy of food. A British biochemist, he was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Who was this genius?

16) These shipping container disaster relief houses are just too good to waste on terrible natural catastrophes. They are easy to deliver, easy to set up (just 90 minutes) and are even self-sustaining. The units come complete with a kitchenette, a fold-out bed, dried foods, and everything else needed for a family to be able to move right in that day. There is also a solar array that powers batteries for off-grid power. But a fully charged battery comes with the unit when it arrives so power is instantly available. What company has created this self sustaining home?

17) Science-fiction becomes science fact with the development of an exoskeleton suit inspired by the one Ripley wore in her climactic battle in Aliens. And, just like in the movie, the suit is designed to give its wearer superhuman strength for lifting of heavy objects. And has plans to release a version to the market by the 2015. What is this PowerLoader suit constructed from?
18) Making a living thing do two things at once is more than a physicist's tour de force, or Pooky’s dream of shopping and writing at the same time. It could answer fundamental questions about the nature of quantum theory. Both the Yaqi sorcerer Don Juan of Carlos Castenada's books and R Buckminster Fuller said this was entirely feasible. In quantum theory, a single object can be doing two different things at once. This is a delicate state, destroyed by any contact with the outside world and only molecules have done it so far. Now, lasers can alter the energy state of a virus by reflecting and transmitting it into both its ground state and next vibrational energy one. What kind of position is it that does two different things at once ?

The 1st Question 69 - 13 Oct 09

2009-10-17T00:16:00.003+01:00

This week's panel

Lorin Tone, Harper Beresford, Reslez Steeplechase, AgileBill Firehawk

Quotes

Chance favors the prepared mind
Harlan Ellison

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
Bertrand Russell

Word-UP of the week – “Inventoil” – Sorting through one’s extensive inventory.
Harper Beresford

Audience Quote of the week – "Heroin was invented to keep soldier away from cocaine...and it succeeded"
Roger Amdahl

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) He is a theoretical physicist specializing in string field theory, and a futurist. He is a popularizer of science, host of two radio programs and a best-selling author. Presently, he is engaged in defining the "Theory of Everything", which seeks to unify the four fundamental forces of the universe. Which we have covered in the show. He has publicly stated his concerns over nuclear power, and the general misuse of science. His latest book, Physics of the Impossible, examines the technologies of invisibility, teleportation, precognition, star ships, antimatter engines, time travel and more - In this book, he ranks these subjects according to when, if ever, they might become reality. Who is this genius among us who has lectured at the City College of New York, for more than 30 years?

2) Devices will use special gel pads to "swipe" a person or crime scene to gather a sample which is then analyzed detecting the presence of chemicals within seconds, much quicker than current analysis methods. This will allow better, faster decisions to be made in response to terrorist threats. Raman spectroscopy involves shining a laser beam onto the suspected sample and measuring the energy of light that scatters to determine what chemical compound is present. What country is developing this technology they also hope will be employed for roadside breathalyzing?

3) It is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement. The scale is only theoretical and in terms of an actual civilization highly speculative; however, it puts energy consumption in a cosmic perspective. The three levels can be quantified in units of power (watts) and plotted on an increasing logarithmic scale. It has three measures -Type I — a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available on a single planet: Type II — one that is able to harness all of the power available from a single star: & Type III — a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single galaxy. At present we are below Type 1 on what scale?

4) He wrote many philosophical papers on ethics and aesthetics. He synthesized the thoughts of Kant and was friends with Goethe. He developed the concept of the Schöne Seele (beautiful soul), a human being whose emotions have been educated by his reason, so that duty and inclination are no longer in conflict with one another; thus "beauty," has morals. He wrote The Robbers considered the first European melodrama and he was an important part of Weimar theatre. This play strongly criticizes the hypocrisies of class and religion and the economic inequities of German society; it also conducts a complicated inquiry into the nature of evil. Beethoven set his poems to music with Ode to Joy- who was he?

5) The experiment was conducted in 1971 as Twenty-four undergraduates were selected to play the roles of both guards and prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the university’s psychology building. Those selected were chosen for their lack of psychological issues, crime history, and medical disabilities. Roles were assigned based on a coin toss. Prisoners and guards all too rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations so much so that the experiment was terminated after six days. The experiment's result has been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. What was this experiment in human behavior?

6) The Soviet Union launched the very first earth-orbiting satellite in 1957, and the world looked on in awe as Sputnik flashed through the sky. Fifty years later, you’d be lucky to see anything. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network says there are almost 20,000 man-made objects in orbit, ninety-four percent of which are non-functional debris. And that’s not counting the hundreds of thousands of bits of junk too small to track. DARPA has put out a call for someone – anyone – to come up with a way to effectively remove orbital debris. There are about nine hundred operational satellites that are in constant danger of smashing into things. With the reality of space tourism drawing ever closer, the need to clean up around the earth has never been more pressing. There have been lots of ideas in the past but none, obviously, has struck DARPA as quite right.. In 2003, an inflatable set of “space tongs” that could grab and tow objects was proposed by which company? So, if you’ve got a concept for the removal of space debris, it might be worth submitting –But, hurry – you have to get your brilliant idea to them before the end of October.

7) What is it with scientists and robotic animals? Did they not have pets as children? This year alone, we’ve seen robot ferrets, penguins, dogs, locusts, moles and bats. And now, scientists at MIT have come up with a robotic what? A fish. Way back in 1994, MIT ocean engineers built “Robotuna”, a four-foot long monstrosity controlled by six motors. the new fish is less than a foot long, powered by a single motor. This new model has a flexible, single-piece polymer body that mimics biological locomotion through the use of controlled vibration. The latest model swims like a tuna. This allows a greater range of movement. Name one of the many reasons to create a robot fish, sushi for robots is not an option.

8) Curators of King Henry VIII's flagship, a Tudor time capsule likened to a British Pompeii, have just revealed thousands of artifacts never before seen by the public. In 1545 the vessel sank off England's southern coast during an engagement with the French fleet. The vessel was spectacularly raised from its watery grave in front of a global audience of some 60 million in 1982. -That must have been when people still watched TV. What remains of the hull has been on display behind glass ever since, but the thousands of personal items found in the wreckage have been hidden from public view due to lack of a suitable space to show them. The artifacts include, well preserved leather "manbag" complete with compact mirror and cut-throat razor -- the height of Tudor fashion, a giant 4 foot long wooden spoon used to stir the crew's porridge pot what every tudor manbag should have of course and 70 nit combs. What was the name of this fabled vessel?

9) RoboBee is the latest buzzword at these two universities which received a $10 million grant to create a swarm of entirely mechanical flying insects. The work will likely be based on the earlier research of the robotic fly micro air vehicle Bees and bee colonies have long been held up as models of efficiency. Using a host of different sensors, unique communication protocols, and a precise hierarchy of task delegation, thousands of bees can work independently on different tasks while all working toward a common goal--keeping their colony alive. So let’s create robotic bees that fly autonomously and coordinate activities amongst themselves and the hive, much like real bees. Furthermore, the RoboBees created will provide unique insights into how Mother Nature conjures such elegant solutions to solve complex problems. Name one of the 2 schools that got the grant to start the electronic hive?

10) A radioisotope battery the size and thickness of a dime can provide power density six orders of magnitude greater than that of ordinary chemical batteries. And a new form of internal structure could mean that these nuclear batteries could be as thin as a human hair. Nuclear power is already used in batteries in pacemakers and space satellites, so they can be safe. This recent innovation is not only in the battery’s size, but also in its semiconductor, this battery uses a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid one to help preserve itslef. Who was an early proponent of the idea that nuclear power could be provided in very small packages, as incredible as it might have seemed in 1952?

The 1st Question 68 - 6 Oct 09

2009-10-10T13:32:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

Elliot Eldrich, Schmilsson Nilsson, Dj2Deillos Supermarine and Crayden Lohner.

Quotes

An idea is salvation by imagination.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
Bertolt Brecht

Word-UP of the week – "IMstorm" - what happens when I log in and get hit with thirty Instant Message's at one time.
Elliot Eldrich

Audience Quote of the week –"Well...data has a certain j'ne sais quoi amongst the science set"
Shenlei Flasheart

Questions
For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

P:1) Meatricity has held its fascination for me for awhile, the ability to use the human body to generate power, okay like a hamster, but I like hamsters, makes me want to start off with this question- This inspired design is intended to travel in a 15-minute circuit around New York, it offers a range of exercise equipment capable of converting energy derived from human motion into usable electric energy stored in batteries. As well as the obvious benefits of exercise and eco-credentials, spectacular panoramic views offer unique variety for passengers that far surpass the bland tedium of a conventional gymnasium. What is it?

2) If there’s one thing there seems to be an endless supply of, it's garbage. The idea of turning landfill trash into fuel to combat the growing energy crisis and tackle carbon emissions isn’t new. But now scientists are saying that replacing gasoline with biofuel derived from processed waste biomass could cut global emissions by as much as 80%. Second-generation biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol derived from processed urban waste, (paper and cardboard) may do it. Name one of the 2 countries this new study on garbage for fuel is from (

3) A rebuilding exercise is underway but it’s not one that uses bricks it uses digital images – maybe even ones you provided unwittingly. A new computer algorithm uses hundreds of thousands of tourist photos to automatically reconstruct an entire city in about a day And could provide visitors with an on-line virtual-reality 3-D tour of them. This particular digital city was constructed in just 21 hours. Using this, a viewer can fly around and to it's great landmarks. Some of the earlier photo-stitching technology, known as Photo Tourism, was much slower. What city has been rebuilt digitally, better and faster?

4) Michael Bennett-Levy's extraordinary collection of early technologies went under the hammer at Bonhams in London- A huge success 748 lots selling for over a million dollars. It was the largest privately held collection of early televisions in the world. One rare 1958 one is a hallmark in style and also one of the earliest examples of high-definition TV - it sold for under $4,000 and features a 19-inch screen, a tapered-hood case in deep purple with a gold trim. The set is also "dual standard", with capability to show 441 lines (which became the standard from 1952) along with HD facility of 819 lines, meaning it is high-definition even by today's standards. It was designed by the same person who designed this remarkable car. Who was the designer or what was the car?

5) A wrist-bound sensor that gathers information about pollution as the wearer walks about town was a surprise hit with visitors at a conservation festival in Amsterdam last month. La Montre Verte (The Green Watch) follows the example of similar projects in London, New York and San Francisco and puts ozone and noise pollution detection in, or rather on, the hands of citizens... In terms of personal technology there is also The bikini that tells you when it’s time todo what?

6) This company managed to obtain data which contained most of the 34million-strong driver details held by Britain's Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. By identifying the make, year, engine size and model has enabling this company to specify the lubricant suitable for each car. Roadside cameras outside London recorded license plates right next to five giant digital billboards. The billboard then flashed the driver's registration number right on the ad next to the sales pitch: What company is selling motor oil to millions of motorists in a Minority Report-style ad campaign this week?

7) The American Heritage Dictionary describes it as: "A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human limb." Real-life ones were developed for the nuclear industry during WWII; named after the inventor of a scifi story by Heinlein. Its essence is the journey of a mechanical genius. The hero’s physical weakness channels his intellect, and his family's money, into the development of a device that is strong for him. This and other technologies he develops make him a rich man, rich enough to build a home in space. This technology is known today by the more generic term "telefactoring"; it is used in a variety of industries, what was the story & man called?

8) Taking a look at a leaked Microsoft Courier video offers a very intriguing look at how we might be using computers in the near future. Use a stylus to write in a search query to look through your tablet. Use a rolodex-style selector for your favorite websites Drag graphics straight from the web to your diary pages or presentations – and Instant sharing. The idea of a tablet of this sort was introduced In Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age, What is the code name for the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, an educational computer?

P: 9) A giant cylinder will splash into the water off the coast of this country all in the hopes of harnessing the energy of waves and converting it to electricity. The sea snake, as it’s called, is being developed and represents a serious investment in marine power. The World Energy Council has estimated the market potential for wave energy at more than 2,000 terawatt hours a year—or about 10 percent of world electricity consumption—representing capital expenditure of $790 billion. The company, E. On is hoping the current project will fare better than their first, a commercial wave project in Portugal that flopped after one of the partners ran out of cash. What coast will see this project in the Spring?

10) He was a Norwegian-American sociologist and economist. He was an impassioned critic of the performance of the American economy and scorned what he termed “conspicuous consumption” and waste of the gilded age. His most important intellectual influences were Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. In 1919, along with John Dewey and others, he helped found the New School for Social Research in NYC. He developed a 20th century evolutionary economics His best known work stated conflict resulted from those who enhanced their social status through predatory claims to goods and services. Who wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class and meant it?

P:11) This is a 1965 photographic book by Swedish photojournalist Lennart Nilsson. The book consists of photographs charting the development of the human embryo and foetus from conception to birth; it is reportedly the best-selling illustrated book ever published. Nilsson's photographs are accompanied by text, written by doctors. The images were among the first of their kind to reach a wide popular audience. Their reproduction in Life magazine sparked so much interest that the entire print run, of eight million copies, sold out within four days; they won Nilsson awards, and reached a sufficiently iconic status to be chosen for launch into space aboard the NASA probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. What is it called?

12) Most of today's telecommunication data is encoded at a speed of 10 Gbit/s, but we are constantly looking for new ways to push this speed limit. A group of researchers at this university have recently come up with the "time telescope," a sophisticated system that can speed up optical communication to an outstanding 270 Gbits/s by squeezing more information into a single flash of light. The device developed includes two silicon chips called "time lenses". Because of its small size, it could be used in optical chips inside a computer, as well as for speeding up Internet connections over long distances. What university is behind the “time telescope"?

13) The book, the movie and the Internet combines. CSI creator Anthony Zuiker has come up with, a crime novel that apparently tries to get readers to interact with movies on a website- "Just doing one thing great is not going to sustain business," he said. "The future of business in terms of entertainment will have to be the convergence of different mediums.” I have to say, as a proponent of Viewer log in entertainment, I approve. Zuiker goes on to say. "Just watching television for one specific hour a week ... that's not going to be a sustainable model going forward." What is the name of the digi-novel that converges three media into one experience?

The 1st Question 67 - 29 Sep 09

2009-09-30T23:53:00.000+01:00

This week's panel

Romane Levee, Wytchwhisper Sadofsky, Vento Shim, Varian Parx

Quotes

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
Seneca

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.
Clarence Darrow

Word-UP of the week "Lindenaire's Disease": any number of conditions in Second Life which might be ascribed to anything Linden Lab's is currently doing to improve the grid.
Varian Parx

Special Word – Up phrase “Lindenairres with uranophobia must eat chittens or else they are effarious.”
Rocket Sellers

Audience Quote of the week – Is it appropriate to dress up as Santa for Halloween?
Troy McLuhan

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Scottish invention time & my crush of the week- The digital television signal today can transmit pictures composed of up to 1,080 lines. That’s a long way from the first TV, demonstrated by this man in 1926. It used just 30 lines to create a coarse image. He is remembered today as an inventor (178 patents) way ahead of his time. Among his pioneering ideas were early versions of color tv, the video disc, televised sports, and pay TV by closed circuit.. His early television looked like a peep-show device, held together with scrap wood, darning needles, string, and sealing wax. Who was this tragic figure who often worked alone for lack of financial backing, lived to see his technical ideas superseded & was forgotten by the time he died at the age of 58?

2) He is considered by many to be the "father of chemistry." His ethnic background is not clear; although some sources state that he was an Arab,. He is held to be the first practical alchemist. His alchemical investigations ostensibly revolved around the ultimate goal of takwin — the artificial creation of life. The Book of Stones includes several recipes for creating creatures such as scorpions, snakes, and even humans in a laboratory environment, which are subject to the control of their creator. He is credited with classifying "Spirits" which vaporise on heating, "Metals", & Non-malleable substances, that can be converted into powders, such as stones. Who was this ancient Polymath?

3) This Staffordshire Hoard is perhaps the most important collection of Anglo-Saxon objects found in England. And it will make us think again about rising (and failing) kingdoms and the complicated transition from paganism to Christianity. Another surprising find happened in 1939 which contained an undisturbed 6th century ship burial including a wealth of outstanding artifacts And what might be references straight out of Beowulf a period of English history which is on the margin between myth, legend and historical documentation. It was found by someone Pretty, Edith May Pretty who owned the estate at the time of the discovery. What is the name of this famous find?

4) Re-using the millions of tons of plastic waste instead of burying, dumping or burning is a great idea. Ground-breaking oh yes, this gave its first public performance in Maryland recently and can be fed almost any petroleum-based waste plastic & convert it into synthetic light to medium oil for less than $10 per barrel. A reactor, converts waste plastic feedstock into oil and makes use of some of the by-products to power the unit. Vent gas is recycled to provide electricity and excess oil residue is transformed. Buy stock in….what company?

5) In the midst of overwhelming debate over climate change - an issue that seemingly paralyzes US politicians – this countries government has announced its intention to construct a 2-gigawatt solar power plant. First Solar is the Arizona-based company constructing the plant, & magnitude of the development is many times greater than any solar plant in operational or considered. If successful, it will cover a staggering 25-square miles, cost billions of dollars and power 3 million homes. In what country?

6) Meat essentially consists of animal muscle. The process of developing in vitro meat involves taking a muscle cell from an animal through a biopsy and joining the cell with a protein that helps the cell to grow akin to the production of yogurt cultures. The development of in vitro meat originally arose out of experiments conducted by NASA. And is cleaner and less prone to disease and contamination than meat garnered from livestock. Who was it that said in the 1930s, "Fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."

7) Biomimetics is the science of applying nature's principles to human engineering and design. The concept is actually quite old - the Chinese wanted to make artificial silk 3,000 years ago, and Leonardo da Vinci copied the wing principles of birds. The most commercial application of Biomimetics has been the development of Velcro. Now, with advances in technology and the need for sustainable technologies, it is fuelling a scientific revolution. A new smart-fabric derived from the properties of this has been developed in the UK. The fabric adapts to changing temperatures by opening up when warm and shutting tight when cold just like these do in nature, what does this smart clothing mimic?

8) A thought-controlled bipedal combat robot will be entered into the 16th Robo-One gladiatorial tournament. The robot will be controlled by its creator who controls the robot with, his own thoughts, gathered by a set of electrodes applied to his head that measure his neural activity. The robot is able to walk forward, rotate right and use its single arm for stabbing attacks. "As this is the first neural signal-controlled combat robot, I hope a lot of people will get to know about it," its inventor said. Training involves repeatedly giving the necessary mental commands to his robot.. In what country is Robo-One held?

9) The first school in the United States to base its entire curriculum around gaming has opened. Quest to Learn (Q2L) will use games such as LittleBigPlanet, Civilization and Spore to teach students—about 25 sixth graders at first—everything from the value of teamwork, how to think strategically and even about the price of war. It 's website sounds like the description for a real-life Jedi academy The school received $1 million in funding from the Gates Foundation, Intel and the MacArthur Foundation, and that will carry the school until 2015,. In what city is this school underway?

10) Red velvet, check. Mechanized base, check. Built-in massage, check. Covered LED canopy lights, check. 32-inch LCD television, check. Vanity mirror, check. Comfortable mattress, oh yeah -Frikkin' kickass champagne cooler? CHECK. What am I talking about here?

11) He rose from obscurity and successfully navigated the shady world of early Russian privatization to become one of the world's wealthiest self-made billionaires. His 40-man private army make him one of the best-protected businessmen in the world, and when his private gigayacht the Eclipse is handed over in time for Christmas, it will be the largest (at a staggering 560ft) and the most expensive (at $1.2 billion). Security will be tight, with missile defence and intruder detection systems - but the Eclipse's most notable feature is a privacy system that can detect the digital cameras of snooping paparazzi and blind them with laser bursts, ruining spy photos. Who is this man with the armor plated bulletproof master bedroom?

12) Heinz Kaminski from Bochum, Germany, who was the first one in the western world listening to Sputnik 1 in 1957. Earth-Moon-Earth, is a radio communications technique which relies on the propagation of radio waves from an earth-based transmitter directed via reflection from the surface of the moon back to an earth reciever. The moon must be visible in order for EME communications to be possible. In 1969, a radio technician was able to use home-built equipment to listen in on the Apollo 11 transmissions. What is the EME also known as?

13) Mexican artist Gilberto Esparza has created a series of robot sculptures. The robots are created entirely from recycled materials; one of his creations takes power from electrical wires and reacts to light sources as well as noises and cell phone signals. inspired by Mexico City street vendors who take power from nearby electric power poles to juice their roadside stalls. Another creation is the Solar Nomad Plant. This is a plant carried in a mobile cart toward available sunlight. The robotic cart apparently feeds off the energy created by decaying bacteria in the polluted water that in turn nourishes the plant. What are these robotic sculptures called?

14) He is included in a list of "The Ten Most Influential People of the Second Millennium”, and it is his contribution which stopped the medical practice of bloodletting as he who was the first in the Western world to describe correctly and in exact detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped around the body by the heart. He was Physician to James 1 & when the king died His research notes were destroyed in riots in London at start of the English Civil War. He was an English physician of great reknown, who was he?

P:15) The story describes a world in which almost all humans have lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth,. Each individual lives in isolation in a standard 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine- Clearly, even in 1909 the author was deeply concerned we were in danger of becoming unable to live without the technology we created. The story predicted several technological and social innovations, such as the 'cinematophote' (television) and videoconferencing. The author also sought to establish the value of direct experience. This shows remarkable foresight, and the book describes many nuances of "online life" over 60 years before the Internet was even invented. The story is called “The Machine Stops” who wrote this cautionary sci-fi novel?

H:16) Scientists trying to model a range of processes could ‘borrow’ a chip from this to get all the power and capabilities they need, saving thousands of dollars on parallel processing hardware and/or countless man-hours. Dr Simon Scarle studying abnormal electrical activity in the heart needed to conduct simulations of how electrical excitations moved. For the cost of a few hundred pounds, he was able to conduct much the same scientific modeling as several thousand pounds of parallel network PCs by taking a chip off of a what?

P: 17)A glass casting method has been revived and developed into a technique to manufacture glass objects from fine glass powder using computer-aided design and a 3-D printer.. This new method bears a striking resemblance to a glass casting technique first developed by the ancient Egyptians and now known as "pate de verre" in which finely crushed glass was mixed with a binding material such as gum arabic and water, deposited on a negative mould to form a coating, and then fused.. What is this significantly cheaper process to precisely manufacture glass structures in various shapes called bringing this ancient method to the digital age?

The 1st Question 66 - 22 Sep 09

2009-09-25T20:33:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

Chase Marellan, Chimera Cosmos, Dedric Mauriac, Pim Peccable.

Quotes

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.
Frederich Nietzsche

Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand.
Edward Everett Hale

Word-UP of the week – “Lagoflage” - Noun. Lag-o-Flage. Feature, claim, or situation that provides the ability to hide within lag. Techniques are often used to provide an excuse to leave events or conversation early by feigning lag. While many people may claim to have lag, an extreme lagoflageist will attempt to decrease network bandwidth, increase CPU & GPU load, or run additional programs that occupy more memory to actually induce lag. "She says she had to leave because the lag was ruining her experience, but I think it was just a bunch of Lagoflage".
Dedric Mauriac

Audience Quote of the week – “I saw popcorn popped by cellphones on youtube.....”
Xanshin Paz

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

P:1) These are a glass curiosity created by dripping hot molten glass into cold water. The glass cools into a tadpole-shaped droplet with a long, thin, tail. The way the glass cools sets up very high residual stress within the drop & gives rise to unusual qualities, such as the ability to withstand a blow from a hammer on the bulbous end without breaking, while the drops will disintegrate explosively if the tail end is even slightly damaged. What is this?

2) Waterbanking is the fundamental factor in future urban infrastructure in the American Southwest. This Nevada project is a prototype that makes the storage, use, and collection of water essential. A network of canals is covered with undulating residential and commercial structures. Sounds familiar. Remember Dune? The “first planetary ecology novel” which forecasts a dystopian world without water. The few remaining inhabitants secluded themselves from their harsh environment. Essentially underground water storage banks, this Nevada project of an underground community is also called what?

3) This Bank is a real-world non-profit startup that is dedicated to building a new currency. According to their website, value is "obtained from your online reputation by tracking your interactions with social networks and the feedback from your contacts." The site just launched last week. When you enter your Facebook or Twitter name, you will see a graph describing your Salary. The algorithm currently considers these aspects:
Public Endorsements, Level of Influence, Existing Reputation & Analyzes Content of Messages. What is this reputation bank called?

4) A stock model developed by physicists has apparently made a successful prediction of a fall in the Shanghai Stock Exchange & is taken from concepts about the physics of complex atomic systems. The idea is that if a plot of the logarithm of the market's value over time deviates upwards from a straight line, it's a clear warning that people are investing simply because the market is rising rather than paying heed to the intrinsic worth of companies. By projecting the trend, you can predict when growth will become unsustainable and the market will crash. Which group on Star trek was known for investing a lot in the science of capitalism? (The Ferengi)

5) A massively-parallel computing device made from supersaturated solutions of sodium acetate? The basic idea is to use the wavefront of crystallization to perform calculations; using its the speed and the way it interacts to perform them. Most experimental prototypes of unconventional computers require a tailored hardware interface (liquid crystals) and specialized equipment (memristors). What is the more common name for sodium acetate trihydrate the ideal DIY unconventional computer material’?

6)In The Island of Dr. Moreau, by HG Welles, Dr. Moreau performs experiments on animals, always testing the limits of what is possible, to transform them into something more man-like. Dr. Moreau wants to find out the extreme limit of plasticity in a living shape. And says, "To this day I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter. The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless as Nature.” When the novel was written in the late 19th century, Britain's scientific community was engulfed by debates on this, even spawning the British Union for the Abolition of what?

7) This state’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the state Declaration of Rights allows police to break into a suspect’s car to secretly install GPS tracking devices, provided they have a warrant before they act. The court said using GPS devices as an investigative tool – which can require police to secretly break into a vehicle to install the device – does not violate the ban on unreasonable search and seizures found in the state’s Declaration of Rights. In what state of the union is this now allowed?

8) This University has given famed researcher Irving Weissman permission to create a mouse-human hybrid. The intent is to inject human brain cells into the brains of developing mice to see what happens. The National Academy of Sciences will unveil guidelines on chimera and stem cell research this spring. But rest assured They conclude if they see any signs of human brain structures . . . or if the mouse shows human-like behaviors, like improved memory,problem-solving, or obsessive behavior over what their girl friend is doing online, they will stop. At what university is this being done?

9) He was editor of the New York Sun, and was recognized as a major figure in the early development of science fiction. He wrote fiction about a man rendered invisible by scientifically & about a time-travel machine before Wells. He wrote about faster-than-light travel ("The Tachypomp"; now perhaps his best-known work) in 1874, a thinking computer and a cyborg in 1879 ("The Ablest Man in the World"), and much else. His 1879 story "The Senator's Daughter", set in the future year 1937, contains several technological predictions which were daring for the time: travel by pneumatic tube, electrical heating, newspapers printed in the home by electrical transmission, food-pellet concentrates, international broadcasts, and the suspended animation of a living human being through freezing (cryogenics) Who was he?

10) It’s formerly known as the One Hectare Telescope, a joint effort by the SETI Institute and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory dedicated to astronomy & search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It pioneers the Large-Number Small-Diameter concept of building radio telescopes. Compared to a large dish antenna, large numbers of smaller dishes are cheaper for the same collecting area, however the signals from all telescopes must be combined. They have also offered to provide the downlink for any contestants in the Google Lunar X Prize. What is this project being built?

11) It is a mission being developed by the Planetary Society, consisting of sending selected microorganisms on a three-year round-trip in a small capsule aboard the Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft. The goal is to test whether organisms can survive for years in deep space and will determine one aspect of transpermia, the hypothesis that life could survive space travel, if protected inside rocks blasted by impact off one planet to land on another. What is it called?

12) First isolated by English and Russian researchers in 2004, graphene is a one-atom thick sheet of carbon atoms densely-packed in a honeycomb structure with unique mechanics. It has a breaking strength 200 times greater than steel, and has proven an excellent choice in manufacturing highly resistant carbon nanotubes, which have quickly become one of the central research areas in today's nanotechnology. The new material grapheme plus hydrogen, graphone, makes graphene magnetic and electric and can become an excellent substitute for what?

13) It is effectively a class of problems of taking an initial set of data that gives the positions, masses, and velocities of some set, for some particular point in time, and then using that set of data to determine the motions of them, and to find their positions at other times, in accordance with the laws of classical mechanics, i.e., Newton's laws of motion and Newton's law of gravity The problem of finding it’s solution was considered very important and challenging. Indeed in the late 1800s King Oscar II of Sweden, established a prize for anyone who could find it. What is this famous problem called?

14) In case the problem could not be solved, any other important contribution to classical mechanics would then be considered to be prize-worthy. But to whom was the prize first awarded?

15) Non-lethal weapons are intended to have reversible effects on personnel and material. They provide soldiers with another option when lethal force isn’t considered to be the best first response to a situation. One non-lethal weapon prototype that is being evaluated by U.S. military is the Thermal Laser System, which attaches to a rifle and uses a laser to create a heating sensation to repel adversaries. Unfortunately, current trials indicate that something nullifies the weapon's effectiveness. What is it?

16) Juvenile Artists Presenting an Electric Musical Toe-Dancing Novelty was his first act. In it he wore a top hat and tails in the first half and a lobster outfit in the second. His sister Adele married her first husband, a son of the Duke of Devonshire and so he went solo, sort of. Notes on his auditions were "Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little." He paired with a woman whose partnership elevated them both to stardom.. Famously insecure and workaholic, He would not even go to see his rushes. Who was this famous dancer?

17) This is a research database tool that helps you find research that you like, or would work well with the research you have already done. It's like the iTunes Genius feature, which looks at your music and organizes it, and then suggests new tunes that you would probably like. At the basic level, students can "drag and drop" research papers which automatically extracts data, keywords, cited references, etc, thereby creating a searchable database and saving countless hours of work. It enables users to collaborate with researchers around the world, whose existence they might not know about until this algorithms find them What is this real time social network in pursuit of scientific truth called?

H:18) The founder of the world Jedi religion has accused this UK-based retail giant of religious discrimination after the company ordered him to remove his hood or leave. Daniel Jones, the 23-year-old founder of the religion inspired by the Star Wars film saga, believes that he has every right to insist on wearing his hood. "It states in our Jedi doctrinarian that I can wear headwear. The retail empire struck back, however, by referencing the film canon, showing that the three best-known Jedi - Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker - all appear in public without their hoods. And company representatives added: Jedi’s are very welcome to shop in our stores. What chain doesn’t want the Jedi’s to miss special offers?

19) Sometimes referred to as the South Atlantic Flash this was an unidentified double flash of light in 1979. Specialists who examined the data speculated that the double flash, characteristic of a nuclear explosion, may have been the result of a nuclear weapons test: "The conclusions of the presidential panel were reassuring, as they suggested that the most likely explanation was a meteoroid hitting the satellite —. Others who examined the data, including DIA, the national laboratories, and contractors reached a very different conclusion —they detected a nuclear detonation." What was this incident known as?

The 1st Question 65 - 15 Sep 09

2009-09-22T23:44:00.001+01:00

This week's panel
Miltone Marquette, EvaMoon Ember, Nexus Burbclave, Reed Steamroller.

Quotes
Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch.
Tim Berners-Lee

Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.
Linus Pauling

Word-UP of the week – Was A Tie!! ”Baff” - A bath taken for purely recreational purposes. Verb: to Bave.
EvaMoon Ember

“ Cruddacular” - When things don't go your way, they're cruddacular.
Reed Steamroller

Audience Quote of the week - “y =mx+b is an answer a husband gave as to why he was out all night”
Lauren Weyland

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) have taken the term ‘green power’ literally by running an electric circuit from the power generated by trees. Its not much but could be used to detect environmental conditions. By hooking nails to trees and connecting a voltmeter- big leaf maples generate a steady voltage of up to a few hundred millivolts. The team’s research follows on a study from what school that found plants generate a voltage when one electrode is placed in a plant and the other in the surrounding soil?

2) Most of his life was lived on Utopia Parkway in Queens along with his mother and brother. He was something of a recluse and became a self-taught artist. He was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmmaker. His most characteristic art works were boxes created from found objects. Many of his boxes, such as the famous Medici Slot Machine, are interactive and are meant to be handled. Who was he?

3) Designed by the famous team Adler and Sullivan with a staff that included the young Frank Lloyd Wright. This Chicago building was originally designed as a luxurious hotel and theatre. Sullivan is considered to be one of the creators of Art Nouveau. Adler did the theaters acoustics; so perfect that every word on stage could be easily heard six stories up and a half block away. Caruso sang there; Prokofiev conducted there. It was the first new building in the world to be electrically lit and the first to be air conditioned via forced air directed over water and blocks of ice. What building was deemed so well made it would cost more to tear down than to rebuild over?

4) They have already created a robot guided by rat brains, now the same team is creating a robot guided by human ones. It always starts as an attempt to understand disease, but who knows where this will take us. Different rat brains, do behave differently and of course so will human ones. What part of the human brain is used to control the robot?

5)Christmas remained a normal working day in Scotland until 1958, this festival is Scottish and steeped in many customs and traditions. Redding or cleaning the house,
Mistletoe, not for kissing under like at Christmas, but to prevent illness to the householders. Pieces of holly are placed to keep out mischievous fairies and pieces of hazel and yew which were thought to have magical powers. Juniper would be burnt, black buns eaten, loud noise made, and “Lang may yer lum reek!” will be and has been said for centuries at this time. What festival is this, peculiar to Scotland?

6) If you’re looking for a universal remote to complement any Harry Potter marathons, this one allows control of the "magical picture box" with a flick of the wrist - 'Abracadabra' optional. The wand features a built-in accelerometer enabling it to recognize “magical gestures” instead of relying on pushing buttons. To turn up the volume, for example, just give the wand a clockwise motion or gesture counter-clockwise to lower it. Want to change the channel? It’s as easy as a flick of the wrist. It can recognize 13 different gestures in all, and is designed to work with just about any contraption that can be remote controlled and will be available from October 1st- what is it?

7) It is any of various kinds of passive two-terminal circuit elements that maintain a functional relationship between the time integrals of current and voltage. Its theory was formulated and named by Leon Chua in1971 writing of symmetry between the resistor, inductor, and capacitor. In 2008 a team at HP Labs announced the development of a switching one. These devices are being developed for application in nanoelectronic memories, computer logic, and neuromorphic computer architectures-called the "missing link of electronics" The similarities between these circuits and the behavior of some simple organisms suggests the hybrid devices could also open the way for computers learning for themselves, like animals. What are they?

8) This is like hook-and-loop “Velcro”but made out of steel and much scarier. One side of the material bristles with sharp spikes and the other side has jagged steel brushes. Looking something like the mouth of a prehistoric shark, a square meter of it can support up to 35 metric tons and withstand heat of up to 800 degrees Celsius. Developed at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, researchers borrowed from the traditional hook-and-loop concept to design a fastener for extreme loads and environments such as automotive, building, or military applications. What is this steel Velcro called?

9) She was an early pioneer of science fiction, before the term was invented. She is actually better known for her work in creating the first popular gardening manuals. Unlike many early works in this genre she did not portray the future as her own day with only political changes: she filled it with foreseeable changes in technology, society, and even fashion. Her court ladies wear trousers and hair ornaments of controlled flame. Surgeons and lawyers are steam-powered automatons. There is even a kind of Internet predicted in it. Her ground breaking book “The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century,” was published anonymously in 1827 She embodied ideas of scientific progress and discovery, that now read like prophecies. Her social attitudes rank this book among feminist novels. Her other very well known book was “Gardening for Ladies.” Who was this remarkable woman?

10) Quarks are the only elementary particles to experience all four fundamental forces, as well as the only known particles whose electric charges are not integer multiples. In physics, a process by which elementary particles interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a physical field; the four known fundamental interactions are electromagnetism, strong interaction, weak interaction and what?

11) Beneath the shimmering surface of this lake a deadly time bomb awaits. A "gold rush" to extract valuable methane from it depths might trigger an outburst of gas that could wash a deadly, suffocating blanket over the 2 million people who live around its shores. Now a group of biochemists warns that if unregulated extraction continues unabated, it could trigger a catastrophic outgassing of carbon dioxide - another dissolved gas abundant in the lake's depths. Such a disaster occurred at Cameroon in 1986, killing 1700 people. This lake contains 300 times more CO2. What lake are we well warned to stop mining?

12) Full HD video conferencing has been available for some time - provided you can afford to spend over $20,000 on a product like Cisco's TelePresence 500. Until now that is. FaceVsion's FXexpress Pro is an ExpressCard-based hardware accelerator with an HDMI input, capable of encoding and decoding video at 30 frames per second in real-time for 1080p video conferencing - and it's available for under what price to the nearest hundred?

13) MANY people have argued that humans are naturally cooperative. Darwin, Lincoln, Roosevelt, the Dalai Lama, Kropotkin, neurobiologist Rilling among them. Our animal nature is characterized as much by kindness and collaboration as it is by competition and carnage. Empathy is the social glue that holds communities together, and if humans are empathetic animals it is because we have "the backing of a long evolutionary history". "Bonding... is what makes us happiest," and evidence from the behavioural and neural sciences supports the claim. Monkeys, cetaceans and rodents all exhibit empathy and what we might call moral intelligence. Which prolific primatologist is rewriting macho origin myths with his belief in the survival of the kindest?

14) The father of the green revolution passed over the weekend at 95. He was a giant of the scientific and technological revolution of the 20th century. He probably saved more lives by ending famine than the more famous names behind polio vaccines or DNA: He said "I personally cannot live comfortably in the midst of abject hunger and poverty and human misery". His answer was to apply science to increase crop yields. He devised an ingenious system to accelerate the breeding of disease-resistant wheat – His plants went on to vastly boost food production elsewhere, notably India as famine-wracked then as Africa is now. Who was this man who won the Nobel peace prize in 1970?

15) Is it possible for an autonomous machine to make moral judgments? This question has given rise to the issue of machine ethics and morality. Can we program this? A recent paper “Modelling Morality with Prospective Logic,” has just been written, declaring that morality is no longer exclusivly human. In 1942, Three fundamental Rules of Robotics were first written by a science fiction genius - One, a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow one to come to harm. Two, a robot must obey human orders except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. And three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Who authored the 3 rules?

16) These could help spacecraft fly across the solar system like ships on ocean currents. Scientists in the United States are trying to map these twisting 'tubes' so they can be used to cut the cost of space travel. Each one acts like a gravitational Gulf Stream, created from the complex interplay of attractive forces between planets and moons. Basically the idea is there are low energy pathways would slash the amount of fuel needed to explore the solar system. Just one U.S. mission so far has made use of the concept. The Genesis spacecraft launched in 2004. Similar to ocean currents, what are these pathways called?

17) In the elevator, the researcher casually asked the volunteer to hold the drink she was carrying while she noted down their name. The subjects did not know it, but the experiment began the moment they took the cup. Once in the lab, the 40 or so volunteers read a description of a fictitious person and then answered questions about the character. Those who had held an iced coffee, rather than a hot one, rated the imaginary figure as less warm and friendly. Linking physical and psychological warmth lies deep in the insular cortex- name one of the two universities involved in this study

18)He collected manuscripts, including an important 13th century Roll of arms,. And this earliest surviving manuscript of a play by William Shakespeare. Both the manuscript and the roll bear his name. He is the 10x great grandfather of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, concocting an ancient Saxon pedigree for himself, inserting details into various authentic documents and installing fake monuments in the church. His antiques were real though. The British Library bought his 13th century roll of arms. Who was he?

The 1st Question 64 - 8 Sep 09

2009-09-12T09:54:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

Lyr Lobo, Nazz Lane, Nuala Maracas, Praxis Carling.

Quotes

Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.
Sigmund Freud

There is a fountain of youth: it is your creativity, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and to the lives of the people you love
Sophia Loren

Word-UP of the week – “Spankenfurter” - a tank in World of Warcraft who moonlights in the lab...to see what's on the slab.
Lyr Lobo

Audience Quote of the week – Did Merv Griffin start out this way?
CodeWarrior Carling

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Fresh evidence has been revealed to support the theory that life on Earth began in space. a specially-designed-comet ‘chaser’, collected particles shed in 2004, and NASA scientists have just confirmed that Glycine an amino acid has been found in a comet.. This discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts. What probe returned this Glycine of extraterrestrial carbon isotope signature?

2) This new approach uses DNA molecules as scaffolding or miniature circuit boards for the precise assembly of carbon nanostructures such as squares, triangles and stars a thickness of the width of the DNA double helix. Researchers say such a technique may provide a way to reach surfaces compatible with today’s semiconductor’s. What company is working on this breakthrough technology with Cal Tech?

3) Earlier in 2009 IKEA launched a new line of furniture, IKEA PS, whose objective was to stretch the idea of design and empower people. With such unusual designs, IKEA felt they had to do something special to help customers imagine how this furniture would fit into their houses, so they turned to a mobile solution The Portable Interior Planner, using what new application?

4) The rise of blogs and social networks has fueled a bull market in personal opinion: reviews, ratings, recommendations and other forms of online expression. For computer scientists, this fast-growing mountain of data is opening a tantalizing window onto the collective consciousness of Internet users. For many businesses, online opinion has turned into a kind of virtual currency that can make or break a product in the marketplace. They know where you live, they know what you’re doing and they know how you feel- what is this emerging field which translates the vagaries of human emotion into hard data?

5) Charles Darwin considered this sudden appearance of many animal groups with few or no antecedents to be the greatest single objection to his theory of evolution. It was the seemingly rapid appearance of most major groups of complex animals around 530 million years ago. Before, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. The long-running puzzlement about the appearance of this era’s fauna, seemingly abruptly and from nowhere. What is this very early baffling period called?

6)A virtual pandemic sparked scientists interests as it showed the progressive of a virus in real life. The "dying virus" effected thousands of players until the game's dev team put a fix in place to stop the flow of the pandemic, despite the repeated asks to replicate it for further research. What game did the entire ordeal take place in?

7) It is one of my favorite films, It is America in the 1950’s and the protagonist is a small town egomaniac who lands a radio show. His on air colloquial charm rapidly has him rise to the New York market, and his gentle ribbing of his sponsors was reminiscent of Arthur Godfrey. He becomes a huge star sponsored by Vitajax (possibly a forerunner to Viagra) and grooms politicians who need to appeal to a mass audience- in fact the mass marketing of politicians was predicted in this prescient film. It introduced Lee Remick. Starred Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. Based on a Budd Schulberg short story called “Your Arkansas Traveler- what is the name of the movie that should be redone today?.

8) Now we can go one step further by making a complete "robot" out of a slime mould, Yes, a commonly occurring one even, that moves towards food sources such as bacteria and fungi, and shies away from light -it will be "programmed" using light and electromagnetic stimuli which was previously used to build liquid logic gates for a synthetic brain. It should be possible to program it to move in certain ways, to "pick up" objects by engulfing them and even assemble them. What is it this ooze affectionately dubbed?

9) Soft inheritance is of use when examining the evolution of cultures and ideas, this is an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer started by Richard Dawkins, it has since turned into a new area of study, one that looks at self-replicating units of culture. Sayings or knowledge touchstones are passed down from one generation to another in a way analogous to genetics. A unit of human cultural transmission is like a gene it can replicate and influence its surroundings, though in a different sense. -what is this field of study ?

10) This website, created at Carnegie Mellon provides a means of calculating your risk of dying in the next year. Suppose that you had a giant urn filled with one million balls Some of these balls are purple for life and some are green for death– each year you draw one out –how many purple lifeballs are in your urn? Depending on your lifestyle, your risk could be dramatically higher (if you are an obese, drunken skydiver) or lower (if you are a vegetarian aerobics instructor) but the results provide a good starting point to think about the risks that you face. What is the name of this site?

11) This robot that can lift patients in and out of beds and wheelchairs on command, while at the same time saving nurses’ backs and improving patient care and safety. It is called the RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) said to be the first robot that can lift up or set down a real human from bed to wheelchair. However, it looks like a cross between a snowman and a badly-designed what?

12) We're already stretching many of our natural resources to their limits, the world's population will jump from 6.5 billion to around 9 billion over the next 50 years. Get ready for a painful correction - there are four interconnected resources that are headed for a catastrophic squeeze within our lifetime.1- Oil, 2-. Food since 2005, the price of wheat has more than tripled. So has the price of corn. Rice has gone up more than 500%. Price increases reflect scarcity 3- Water - According to the World Economic Forum, within 20 years water will become a bigger theme for investors than oil. What is the 4th resource – it is diminishing due to a combination of commercial greed, weak policy, consumer disinterest, massive waste and blatant disregard for what flimsy rules are in place?

13) WAHHA GO GO is activated by spinning the torso-mounted metal disk (an optional crank arm can be used for greater speed). While The disk’s rotational energy is transferred via a gear assembly in the lower back. As the arms rotate, the accordion-like lungs expand upward, drawing in air that is then exhaled through the machine’s artificial vocal cords. The WAHHA GO GO is a clockwork mechanism created to produce an accurate imitation of what?

14) The Kalashnikov has been the common man’s rifle for sixty years and has been responsible for more misery and wasted humanity than any other invention of history. Now an ingenious Afghan inventor, has built one into a burglar alarm - a highly effective, seat-of-the-pants mash up that includes a cell and speaker phone, sensors, and armed response. Trigger the alarm by waving a hand outside the window of the inventor’s one-room home and the alarm sounds. It also calls his cell phone so he can have a conversation with the would-be burglar via a speakerphone in the alarm, and if he doesn’t like the answers he gets, he can fire the Kalashnikov remotely. What is the next punitive anti- theft system he is working on?

15) They were placed inside Mount St. Helens and can not only communicate with each other - they can form a robust "self-healing network" that can survive the loss of individuals to volcanic activity. Each has infrared detection & a GPS to sense the ground bulging and pinpoint the exact location of seismic activity. Once in place, they form what is known as a mesh network. "It's similar to the internet," "You just lay them out, and they figure out the best way to route the data." What are they?

16) This developed in sympathy with the English Arts and Crafts movement & influenced by the Idealistic Romantics (better homes would create better people) It sought to develop an indigenous North American style of architecture. Mid-western architects offended by the Greek and Roman classicism of nearly every building erected for the Chicago World's Fair, sought to create new work in and around Chicago that would display a uniquely modern and authentically American style. The most famous proponent of the style, Frank Lloyd Wright, promoted an idea of "organic architecture", that a structure should look as if it naturally grew from the site. What is the name of this ‘school” which took a horizontal outlook on design?

17) The world’s fisheries may be seriously depleted, but a comprehensive new study shows that all is not lost–and suggests that when humans really put the effort into turning the tide, fish stocks can be returned to good health. A combination of measures - such as catch quotas, no-take zones, and selective fishing gear - had helped fish stocks recover in 5 rebounding ecosystems: 2 are in the US, name one of the other 3 ?

18) Once upon a time before the Darwin it was thought an organism could pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring. This is also known as heritability of acquired characteristics And named for this man who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories Darwin & Mendel straightened that out -. What system was abandoned?

The 1st Question 63 - 18 Aug 09

2009-08-31T00:00:00.001+01:00

This week's panel

Tom Bukowski, Eureka Dejavu, Spiral Walcher, Mykal Skall.

Quotes

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a person. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.
Lewis Mumford

Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.
Charles M. Schulz

Word-UP of the week - “Imagination Age.” - The Imagination Age is the time in which people are learning to envision the most innovative uses for technology and creativity to connect with each other for fun and meaningful work.
Eureka Dejavu

Maybe, but will they be able to decipher the contents of Hydra's brain?
Skye Vanistok - Audience Quote of the week

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) The Defining Issues Test measures ethical reasoning in five areas: Seminarians and philosophers are the runaway winners . After that come medical students, physicians, journalists, dental students, and nurses. Then this group of people follow them. Who surprisingly scores higher than orthopedic surgeons, business professionals, and accounting students?

2) A French philosopher, he is responsible for introducing the term altruism. The motto Ordem e Progresso ("Order and Progress") in ("Love as a principle and order as the basis; Progress as the goal" His law of three stages was one of the first describing social evolutionism. His emphasis on a quantitative, mathematical basis for decision-making remains with us today and begat the modern notion of Positivism, modern quantitative statistical analysis, and business decision-making. Who was he?

3) “Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light- So begins this novel with an epigraph from Plato. The titular hero a lab animal, & has undergone surgery to increase his intelligence by artificial means. The story is told by the first human test subject for the surgery who has an IQ of 68, and touches upon many different themes for treatment of the mentally disabled. The surgery is a success and his IQ triples but it doesn’t last forever. What is the name of this book which made Pooky cry?

4) The "Father of American Anthropology, like many pioneers, began elsewhere- he received his doctorate in physics,- He is famed for applying the scientific method to the study of human cultures and societies, his interest led him to "psychophysics," He said that “all service, therefore, which a man can perform for humanity must serve to promote truth.”. He lived for a while among the Inuit too. He extolled a method of science that begins with questions, not with answers, least of all with value judgments. Who was this great man who valued truth so highly?

5) This was apparently built entirely by Wu Zhongyuan in China. He used about $1,600 in assorted parts (like a motorcycle engine) and steel pipes for reinforcement. He figured out how to do it with "relevant knowledge found while surfing the Internet via his mobile phone." Wu claims that this has the ability to fly as high as 2,600 feet - but the Chinese government has grounded him for the time being, due to safety considerations. What did he build?

6) He was an American engineer with a political role in the development of the atomic bomb, he told Harry to drop it. He believed in a democratic technocracy. He introduced the concept of what he called the memex in the 1930s, a microfilm-based mechanized device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart, were influenced by him in what became hypertext. Who was he that had a pioneering vision for the World Wide Web.?

7) He was a North African polymath born in present-day Tunisia. He is considered a forerunner of social sciences and modern economics, and for anticipating many elements of these disciplines centuries before they were founded in the West. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in the West), the first book on universal history. He developed the concept of a "generation," Some say he anticipated Marx’s theory of value as he asserts that all value (profit) comes from labour. Who was this man?

8) She was an American fashion designer and socialite, who traveled to China in 1936 and brought back the first live giant panda to the United States - not in a cage, or on a leash, but wrapped in her arms. With the help of a Chinese-American explorer she captured a nine-week-old panda cub. The panda was bottle-fed baby formula on the journey back to the United States and caused a great sensation in the American press. She also stayed at the Chelsea hotel upon her return to the US. Who was she?

9) It is an anthropomimetic robot under development by European roboticists. Their focus is to create robotics that accurately mimics the internal structure - & mechanisms - of humans. They are limited to using polymer for bones, screwdriver motors, shock cord for muscle, and kite line for tendons. Its human-like hand can easily grasp and handle objects, and has a handshake for its humans. At some point, it will be built out of materials that are much closer to human bone and sinew - which gets closer to building an android from scratch. What is this robot?
10) Here the natural replaces the manmade –branches supplant concrete and steel, marking a clear balance between natural and artificial architecture. The architecture becomes landscape itself, and waste materials both during and after construction is eliminated. As the branches of the pavilion it makes take root and grow, they mutate the structure and transform the architecture. What is this environmentally desirable build called?

11) This was sort of tastefully demonstrated by Doctor Emilio Lizardo in the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai. This is a device that takes information gathered by the sensors in a pair of glasses and sends them to a "lollipop" electrode array that sits on your tongue. What is this non-surgical assistive visual prosthetic for the blind that translates information from a digital video camera to your tongue, through gentle electrical stimulation?

12) A fantasy written by Johannes Kepler in which a student is transported to the Moon by occult forces. It presents a detailed imaginative description of how the earth might look, and is considered the first serious scientific work on lunar astronomy, also the first science fiction. It began as a student dissertation in which Kepler defended the Copernican doctrine. The book was published posthumously in 1634. What is this book whose name is Latin for The Dream?

13) Although King James VI inherited the English crown after Elizabeth 1for the Kingdom of crowns, Great Britain and Scotland were not a single body till The Acts of Union joined them in 1707. Many Scots were opposed, though it was claimed that union would enable Scotland to recover from this financial disaster The Company of Scotland became involved with an ambitious plan to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama in the hope of establishing trade with the Far East — the same principle which, much later, would lead to the construction of the Panama Canal. Settling in South America proved fatal for most The English Government, was opposed, since it was at war with France and did not want to offend Spain, which claimed the territory. In July 1699, after barely eight months, the colony was abandoned. What was this ruinous failed attempt called?

14) Pooky’s crush of the week was a Scottish physician, physicist, and founder of thermochemistry also part of the Scottish Enlightenment. He studied properties of carbon dioxide and was the first person to isolate it in a perfectly pure state. This was an important step as it helped people to realize that air was not an element, but rather composed of many different things. Then In 1761 his theory of latent heat proved important to abstract science and in the development of the steam engine. Who was James Watt’s close friend and mentor?

15) The statistics paint a grim picture - an estimated 2.0 million people, including over a quarter million children, died of AIDS in 2007 & two thirds of the 33 million who live with HIV do so in sub-Saharan Africa. New advancements in microbicides may help to improve this horrific scenario with researchers undertaking trials for a ‘molecular condom’ to prevent its spread in women. This is important because it "can enable women to protect themselves particularly in resource-poor areas of the world like sub-Sahara Africa and south Asia where…women are often not empowered to force their partners to wear a condom." Where is this life saving research taking place?

16) She was born in New York City, and graduated Vassar College in 1909. She taught at Columbia as an anthropologist. Margaret Mead wrote the intro to her book “Patterns of Culture” which had as its essential idea the view of human cultures are “personality writ large.'" She also battled racial profiling, saying "The best scientists cannot tell from examining a brain to what group of people its owner belonged... She wrote “The Chrysanthemum & The Sword” & influenced Roosevelt’s wise decision to let the Emperor of Japan remain as part of the negotiations of surrender. & she is on a postage stamp. Who was she?

The 1st Question 62 - 11 Aug 09

2009-08-15T18:43:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

Farqot Gustafson, Abbey Zenith, Pb Recreant, Dirk McKeenan

Quotes

Every human being is interested in two kinds of worlds: the Primary, everyday world which he knows through his senses, and a Secondary world or worlds which he not only can create in his imagination, but which he cannot stop himself creating.
W.H. Auden

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
Albert Einstein

Why we prefer Einstein for relativity & Newton for gravity

Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.
Albert Einstein

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
Sir Isaac Newton
(I believe he was citing his old Aunt Minnie)

Word-UP of the week - “Lagbarassed” - clothes that fail to rez, leaving you embarassed (and bare-a****.)
Abbey Zenith

I’m getting a pair of bagpipes if it has this effect on her
Portent Mavendorf - Audience Quote of the week

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) 3 sets of gamers are portrayed who represent the 25 million players worldwide who consider themselves addicted to MMO's. This movie, the first movie about virtual worlds which we know has changed the way human beings interact is just released - what is the film called?

2) This Refers to interfaces that work via the sense of touch by forces, vibrations, and/or motions . This mechanical kind of stimulation has made it possible to investigate in detail how the human sense of touch works. In the future, expert surgeons with machine setup will use this kind of technology using telepresence. The word itself comes from the Greek verb meaning to “contact” or “touch” What kind of technology is it?

3) In the Fifties a Labour party activist visited this country and saw how it was using radio broadcasting to educate remote communities. He fed the idea to Labor party leader Harold Wilson, who thought up a system of long-distance learning available to all regardless of qualifications, and take advantage of the fact that 14 million UK households had TV. In 1963 Wilson made a speech outlining what he then called “the University of the Air”. From whom did he get the idea of open universities from?

4) The U.S. Mint had been producing one-cent coins since its founding in 1792, but the 1909 penny (which replaced the Indian-head coin) was the first coin on which a President's likeness appeared. While most people applauded the new design, former Confederate soldiers were upset at the prospect of carrying the image of Lincoln in their pockets. Which president commissioned the penny to celebrate the 100th birthday of Lincoln?

5) In 1975 a 50-year-old bricklayer from England, literally died laughing while watching this show. According to his wife, who was a witness, the man was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which one of the comedians dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a psychopathic black pudding in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye". After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter the man expired from heart failure. To what show did his widow send a letter thanking them for making her husbands final moments so pleasant.?

6) This major American corporation was founded in 1908 by a man whose middle name was "Crapo." Amazingly Billy Durant began this company with only $2,000 in capital. It also was the target of strikes by workers who labored under dangerous conditions. Two weeks after thousands of striking workers occupied the factory; police raided the plant, firing tear gas. The strikers inside fought back by opening the fire hoses and hurling two-pound hinges and other auto parts at them. The police ran away. What company agreed to grant sole bargaining right to the United Auto Workers, and therefore became responsible for the rise of this union?

7) Hitler was a practical joker and one of his favorite targets was his foreign minister.. One prank famously backfired, when he sent him into Spain on a plane full of Gestapo, and made him think he was being set up for a suicide mission. Instead the man took an opportunity while refueling to board a train to Switzerland, and before anyone could let him in on the joke, he turned himself over. He studied at Harvard and described the cheerleaders to Adolf, who became obsessed with the idea of stirring blind enthusiasm in this way. "'Rah, rah, sis boom bah' became "Sig Heil, Heil Hitler," Who was this man who became an invaluable source of information for the allies?

8)It is a relaxation beverage produced by a Canadian company & dubbed an "anti-energy" drink It was actually created to "help people slow down" and parodied Red Bull by using similar packaging. The main ingredient is L-Theanine which according to the manufacturer, "produces a feeling of relaxation, creates a feeling of well-being and increases mental awareness, cognition, and concentration. What is it?

9) The Himawari is a robotic sunflower that does not grow towards the sun, like a biological sunflower. That would be heliotropism. This robotic sunflower is homotropic, in the sense defined by Philip K. Dick; it turns toward people. Created in Japan, its Servomotors follow the motion of a person's hand using an infrared camera in its head. Philip K. Dick introduced the idea of robots that find, then follow human beings in his 1963 novel called, what?

10) As an efficient, natural means of capturing solar energy, photosynthesis is hard to beat. But it’s also proving extremely difficult to duplicate. The best light-capturers in nature are the chlorosomes of bacteria, which can harvest light particles in even the worst conditions, such as at the bottom of the ocean. A bacterial light antenna was built copying the exact molecular and supramolecular structure using the chlorophyll of the alga Spirulina: In what country was this worked out?

11) Helping you negotiate a better price when buying goods and services on the net, they act as an intermediary after asking you about how much you want and under what circumstances less would be accepted. Rather than the fixed price model, a relatively recent development in history, the site negotiates a different deal with every sale, using a series of simple rules - known as heuristics. "Computer agents don't get bored, they have a lot of time, and they don't get embarrassed," are some reasons for its success – from what company do these intelligent software "agents" come?

12) A touchable holography display prototype has been built and adds tactile feedback to a hovering three-dimensional image. The tactile sensation is provided using this. In laymen's terms, it pushes against your hand. Hand position is determined using the Wiimote tracking system; What is actually pushing your hands so you can feel virtual raindrops on the palm?

13) Can a tough and weedy shrub solve all of our energy problems and stop runaway climate change? Don’t be ridiculous—of course it can't. But that, briefly, was the hype surrounding this poisonous plant that grows wild in tropical climates. It’s seeds are saturated with oil that can be easily processed into biofuel, and it was thought to grow on : wasteland that's sandy, rocky, dry, or nutrient-poor. However it needs fertile soil and significant amounts of water, like most other crops to produce enough & Just last week, the oil company BP withdrew from a partnership to produce 1 million hecates of what?

14) The cyber-attack that temporarily disabled Twitter for 2 hours recently was probably politically motivated and directed at a pro-Georgian blogger in a distributed denial of service attack. It seems Twitter, a relatively new service with a U.S.-based infrastructure, couldn’t handle the surge in traffic. It has not been confirmed who perpetrated the attack, but it is believed to have been an attempt by the Russian government to squelch criticism over it's conduct in the war over the disputed South Ossetia region, which began a year ago. How is the attacked blogger called?

15) When Paris hosted the Exposition Universelle in 1900, it unveiled its vision for the future of transport. Below ground, the city's stylish new Metro made its debut, while above ground was something more avant garde .Nearly 7 million visitors hopped onto the trottoir roulant and one woman gave birth in transit. But, the idea of high-speed walkways had been established in New York longer than anywhere else. Back in 1871, a local wine merchant patented the first "endless-traveling sidewalk", and promptly proposed an ambitious elevated 18 mph moving walkway along Broadway. Despite building a working model and lobbying state and city politicians for a decade, He discovered his invention was simply too visionary. Who was this man?

16) Generally, the worst spinal cord damage doesn't happen at the scene of the injury - it's the swelling and the crazy firing and burning out of otherwise healthy neurons in the hours and days following the incident that turns a bad situation permanently worse. Much of this is because of a chemical called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP is used as a kind of cellular battery to deliver energy to cells around the body in normal life. In effect, a patient might receive a spinal injury of low or medium severity - but the actions of ATP in the hours and days after the trauma can completely destroy the function of the spinal cord, leaving patients paralyzed. What is it that can be administered intravenously effectively blocking the action of the ATP at the injury site, but makes you turn blue in the process?

17) Besides dabbling in science fiction, he also patented several inventions, including a vibratory disintegrator used to produce gas from peat moss and a pneumatic road-improver. John Jacob Astor IV died on the Titanic, an opponent of the federal reserve system. He wrote a science fiction novel that offered an account of life in the year 2000.Which included descriptions of a worldwide telephone network, solar & wind power, air travel, electric cars, space travel to the planets Saturn and Jupiter, and terraforming engineering projects — damming the Arctic Ocean, and adjusting the Earth's axial tilt (by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company) what is the name of this book?

18) Produced by Sega Toys, the Uchiage Hanabi is a projector that lets users display this on their walls and ceilings complete with realistic sound effects. The device uses five customizable projection lenses to display movement and even tracks them from launch to explosion to mimic the appearance of the real thing. The compact unit incorporates a speaker for the various bangs and whistles, but you’ll have to generate the oohs and ahhhs on your own. What does it project into your living room?

19) It’s tiny, it’s bioengineered and has been successfully created and implanted in an adult mouse by Tokyo University researchers. Taking cells from a mouse embryo and cultivated them in a collagen-based medium this was made, implanted and grew to be fully functioning. Hopefully this technology is a model for future replacement therapies. This was able to perform as if the mouse had been born to use it - what part of the mouse was replaced?

20) A free-standing bell tower, often adjacent to a church or cathedral. The most famous one is probably the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Other notable examples include the one in St Mark's Square, Venice. Those outside of Italy are often modeled after St Mark's. and a modern one would be the Frankfurt Messeturm. Modern campaniles often contain carillons, a musical instrument traditionally composed of at least 23 large bells which are sounded by cables, chains, or cords connected to a keyboard. What are these kind of structures called?

The 1st Question 61 - 4 Aug 09

2009-08-07T22:56:00.002+01:00

This week's panel

Ronnie Rhode, Mike Burleigh, Gentle Heron and Lowri Mills

Quotes

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
Erma Bombeck

Word-UP of the week - “ Lindenary” - having a clever future vision though presently somewhat disorganized.
Gentle Heron

Audience Quote of the week – “I’d believe Mousezilla before I’d believe Inferno”
Fearchar Enoch

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) You play for 16 hours a day. You’ve lost your job, your friends, and you hardly eat or bathe anymore. Obviously, you need help but you’re unwilling to tear yourself away from your PC and see a counselor. Well, if you’re not going to them, maybe they can come to you - Dr. Richard Graham, a consultant psychiatrist in London, would like therapists to join in order to treat addicted gamers right where they’re spending all their time. The project is scheduled to be launched by year’s end by which time Graham hopes to convince the makers to waive costs for psychiatrists. This is not the next episode of shrink-wrapped - but Where will this take place?

2) When this company bought Skype from Joltid in 2005, the whopping US$2.6 billion price tag didn't include the Global Index peer-to-peer software that the world's biggest Internet Telephony system is based on. And now, Joltid is trying to cancel Skype's license on the Global Index technology in a move that threatens to shut Skype down once and for all. Is it just a canny commercial chess move to force the owner to sell Skype back to Joltid at a huge discount - or is it the end of Skype as we know it? Who bought Skype from Joltid in 2005?

3) Psychohistory, according to Isaac Asimov's , says that "while one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events., Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi leave behind detailed traces of our lives, sensors and tags generating data at micro levels give a wealth of data to examine & help accurately forecast the effects of phenomena like catastrophic events, mass population movements or invasions of new organisms into ecosystems This capability will be possible thanks to the collection of information from machine-sensed sources to provide knowledge about aggregated human behavior. What is this term called?

4) This could provide a cheap, renewable fuel source for vehicles. It’s abundance makes large-scale production of hydrogen as fuel a more viable prospect. And, most importantly, it’s actually a lot easier and cheaper to extract hydrogen from this than water. The hydrogen atoms in it– are less tightly bonded than those in water. So much less power is needed to break the molecule apart. –its biggest drawback is that it hydrolyses into ammonia very quickly. Aztec physicians used it to clean wounds. It’s been used in the manufacture of saltpeter for gunpowder. And, most famously, German alchemist Hennig Brand discovered phosphorous while trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone from it - what is the world’s most abundant waste product?

5) He was a six-year-old child who disappeared in lower Manhattan in 1979. After convincing his mom he wanted to walk the 2 blocks to the school bus alone, she never saw him again. He most likely met, was abducted by and then killed by his baby-sitters friend. At the time, news coverage of his disappearance was made into a media circus. He is arguably the most famous missing child of New York City. His disappearance helped spark the missing children's movement, including new legislation, new awareness, and various methods for tracking down missing children. Who was this boy whose face was on the cover of countless milk cartons?

6) Ever wonder how an insect with such a tiny brain can thwart your attempts to catch it nearly every time? Apparently scientists do, too. To find out how the common blowfly manages to process visual images more than four times faster than humans, researchers have built the bug a flight simulator. After immobilizing each insect with a fly-sized harness and attaching electrodes to its brain, biologists from the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology placed blowflies in front of a semicircular LED screen displaying various moving patterns. The German scientists hope what they discover about insect vision will help build better flying robots. And they’re not the only ones studying flies in a flight simulator —what is the California Institute of Technology using to learn about muscle coordination and visual processing in fruit flies?

7) In 1769, Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen saw a magic show at the Imperial court, proclaimed he could create a more compelling spectacle and did. He called it the Automaton Chess Player. It resembled a robed man sitting at a table in front of a chessboard, smoking a pipe, one movable arm extended over the board, ready to play. The display had various panels which could be slid open to reveal impressive looking machinery. The device, like its creator, showed a sophisticated understanding of science, showmanship and the public mood. When Kempelen announced that his mechanical man could beat any person at chess, he was capitalizing on the perceptions of an audience living at the cusp of the Industrial revolution.. A fast, aggressive player, it beat most people within half an hour. Its victims included Ben Franklin and, in a dramatic showdown, Napoléon Bonaparte. In particular, it captured the imagination and the king of Charles Babbage, who was, at the time, contemplating the possibility of mechanical calculation. He built the Difference Engine, after playing it. What was this automon more commonly known as, the possible great grand daddy of IBM's Deep Blue?

8) In 1926, Westinghouse created the first robot, Mr. Televox, a cardboard cutout of a humanoid figure which was connected to various devices via phone lines, and allowed users to turn equipment off and on using voice commands. Televox was followed by Rastus, a “mechanical slave” However the most famous robot Westinghouse created was this. On debut at the 1939 New York World’s Fair the seven-foot, 265 pound golden giant walked, talked, and smoked cigarettes. Like the Turk, it captured a surging public sentiment that the future would contain technological marvels which it did. Alas, The robot was last seen in the 1960 film “Sex Kittens go to College” where it starred as “Thinko”, a funk machine accompanied by an entourage of four strippers and a monkey. Following Sex Kittens, it was decapitated and his body sold for scrap. Its legacy lives on, what was its name?

9) A remote-sensing mechanism that examines the content of blogs to measure the emotional levels of millions of people purports to give an indication of happiness. The system works by searching new blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling.” It records the full sentence and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence. Each sentence then receives a happiness score based on a standardized “psychological valence’ For example, “triumphant” scores 8.87 on the happiness-unhappy scale, while “suicide” scores 1.25. What is this site which contributes to the Journal of Happiness Studies?

10) The iPhone has many different applications, some are useful, some are hilarious, this one might be both, or neither.. This application rates your sexual performance based on duration, power (as measured by the iPhone's built-in accelerometer) and loudness of orgasm, giving you a score out of 10 for your efforts. You can then compare "high scores" with other couples (or singles) around the world.. Turn the app on, stick it on the bed, explain to your partner that you're looking for an empirical ranking of your boudoir skills, and go to town - if they're still interested. And all this for only $4.99! What is this app called?

11) They have no interest in actively pursuing women, are nonchalant about career and find cars a bore. They call themselves by the anonymity of their online handles. A growing group of men rejecting traditional masculinity when it comes to romance, jobs and consumption is an apparent reaction to the tougher economy. Forget being a workaholic, corporate salary-man. These men, raised as the economic bubble burst, are turning their backs on Japan's stereotypical male roles in what is seen as a symptom of growing disillusionment in their country's troubled economy. What have the media dubbed them?

12) ) The name means Primeval God of Hell, and the place of ultimate punishment. One of the first Gods to arise from the void of Creation, , like his siblings NYX and CHAOS, he personifies ultimate formless gloom. Little is known of his personality but as the first God of Hell we assume he had to be depressing. Presumably HADES rents the Underworld from him on favorable terms. If he was in Second Life he might charge double for tier. Who gives his name to the dark places of punishment for those that have been judged guilty of unspeakableness?

13) According to the company, Allen Stoltzfus had learned German through immersion while living in Germany, and found it relatively easy. In the 1980s, Stoltzfus began learning Russian in a classroom setting, but discovered it to be much more difficult. He wanted to simulate the German experience, and he decided to use computing technology to create a similar learning experience. By 1992, CD-ROM’s made the project possible. Its title and its logo is an allusion to this artifact inscribed in multiple languages that helped Jean-François Champollion to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics –what is the name of this popular learning tool?

14) Mankind seems to have a compulsion to get off the ground. America went crazy for the pogo stick in the 1920’s, where even chorus girls in NY performed on them, and marriage vows were exchanged on them. And, in the 60’s, trampolining took off as a competitive sport, with the first world championships held in 1964. These however, are a cross between stilts and a pogo stick that harnesses energy in the same way as a trampoline. A German aerospace engineer apparently studied the movements of kangaroos in order to develop his original prototype –what is it called?

15) It is non invasive surgery, on a specific point in the brain--that absorbs the energy and converts it to heat. The entire system is integrated with a magnetic resonance scanner, which allows neurosurgeons to make sure they target the correct piece of brain tissue. Performed successfully on nine human patients, in Switzerland, the groundbreaking finding here is that you can make lesions deep in the brain--through the intact skull and skin--with extreme precision, accuracy and safety, How has recent non invasive surgery been performed?

16) She was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. She was a writer and a renowned lecturer on women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. She planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick and failed. Spending years in prison for conspiring to "induce persons not to register", and for handing out birth control as well as being blamed for influencing McKinleys assassination, she eventually founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth. Who was this legend who died in Toronto?

17) Recently, as the world celebrated the first lunar landing, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins both called for NASA to make Mars its next goal. But the chemical propulsion system that took them to the moon would take six months, at least, to get a man to Mars and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. However, a new ion plasma rocket being developed by another former astronaut, could potentially reach Mars in just 39 days using a fraction of the fuel. This astronauts prototype promises specific impulses extremely high Well, his rocket doesn’t achieve propulsion by combusting fuel but, rather, by superheating atoms to create and expel a plasma plume. Who is he?

18) In the broad sense pluripotent refers to "having more than one potential outcome." News last month has spread about research out of China. Two teams used mouse fibroblasts, a kind of cell found in this connective tissues, which were then used to create living mice. Their breakthrough research suggests that cloning full animals from these cells are a current reality. To be able to create those which act like embryonic stem cells, without the embryo part, opens to door to a fascinating and less-controversial field of medical research, including organ repair or even full organ replacements that are guaranteed to match the host's body. What kind of cell was taken from the mice?

The 1st Question 60 - 28 Jul 09

2009-07-29T00:00:00.000+01:00

This Week’s Panel

Doubledown Tandino, Gaius Luminous, Menubar memorial & Joel Savard

Quotes

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.
Thomas B. Macaulay

A person possessed with an idea cannot be reasoned with.
James Anthony Froude

Word – UP of the week - Mishomer - the nonsense that shows up on the screen when you type with your hands in the wrong place on the keyboard
Joel Savard

Audience quote of the week – There are 10 types of people: those who know binary and those who don't.
Haplo Eberhart

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1)Sun Danyong, apparently committed suicide after an iPhone prototype went missing. The company he worked for gave his family $44,000, and his girlfriend received an Apple laptop. Sun apparently was given not just one, but 16 prototype iPhones on July 9 or 10 to deliver to R&D, and he reported one missing three days later. He committed suicide early in the morning on July 16, after allegedly suffering through brutal interrogations. Even if you don't know the company’s name, you know the products they produce. Major, beloved hardware brands like Apple and Nintendo rely on their assembly lines to make some of the most coveted gadgets in the world. What is the name of this company which asks for perpetual overtime and pays about $220 a month? (Thanks to Gismodo for this)

2) ) Artificial skin is now in mass production in this country , and can produce up to 5,000 little swatches of human skin per month. Each little swatch is about one-tenth of a square inch and costs just $49 to produce. The process is completely automated; computers monitor the vats that the skin grows in, guiding the blade that cuts them free and tests the final product (including checking for infection). The artificial skin comes complete with blood vessels and can be used for grafts and plastic surgery. What country is this being done in?

3) In Greek mythology, she was the goddess who personified triumph throughout the ages, the Winged Goddess of Victory. She was sister of (Strength), (Force), and (Rivalry). According to classical myth, Styx brought the sisters to Zeus when the god was assembling allies for the Titan War against the older deities. She assumed the role of the divine charioteer, but is often seen with wings to remind people that victory is fleeting. She is one of the most commonly portrayed figures on Greek coins and on the Olympic coins her figure holds a palm frond in her left hand and a winner’s crown in her right.

4) With a reported one third of the currency in circulation being fake, in 1865 the Treasury Department needed them to suppress counterfeiting, The United States Marshals Service did not have the manpower to investigate all crime , so this group was used to investigate everything from murder to bank robbery to illegal gambling. After the assassination of McKinley in 1901, Congress informally requested that they provide presidential protection. And it wasn’t until 2003, they were transferred from Treasury to the newly established Department of Homeland Security. They almost put their lives on the line when a hand grenade was thrown at President Bush but failed to detonate What is this armed force called in the US?

5) He went to Bronx High School of Science & During his lifetime, he founded two companies for manufacturing electronic musical instruments. Moog was already building theremins when his friend sparked his interest in synthesizers. When he built a prototype for the 1964 Audio Engineering Society Convention, the response was enthusiastic He built the moog, the minimoog and the Kurzweil K2000, possibly the maximoog. It was however this 1968 release by Wendy Carlos that brought him his greatest success. What was this platinum selling album?

6) Alarm clocks come in all shapes and sizes, I am still waiting for the fly alarm clock which lands on your nose till you wake up. There’s the Puzzle Alarm Clock to get the gray matter working first thing in the morning and the Clocky to get you up and running. Joining the ranks of masochistic devices is this alarm clock which comes in charcoal gray and features a simple digital LCD clock display. The Shape Up Alarm Clock won’t stop screeching until you’ve done 30 reps. What is the shape of this alarm, the perfect gift for anyone you're not that fond of. (

7) Geometric modeling, A Knowledge Engine possibly the first literary description in history of something resembling a computer., and Bio – Energy were first described in a 1726 book whose hero is rescued after a shipwreck by a fictional flying island that can be maneuvered by its inhabitants in any direction This islands residents had discovered the two moons of Mars (which in reality would not be discovered for another 150 years), but couldn't construct well-designed clothing or buildings - The population of the island mainly consisted of educated people, who wee fond of mathematics, astronomy, music and technology, but failed to make practical use of their knowledge. Yes the book is Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. What is the name of the magnetically levitated island ?

8) Scientists in Nevada have found a new and environmentally friendly source for something quite important using “chicken feather meal”, a delightful material that consists of chicken feathers, blood, and innards made from the 11 billion pounds of poultry industry waste that accumulates annually in the US alone. Currently feather meal is used as animal feed and fertilizer because of its high protein content. It has a 12 percent fat content, and using boiling water could create 152 million gallons of what?

9) There’s no doubt the refrigerator is the central hub of the kitchen, serving more than its primary purpose of keeping things cold. In recent years we’ve seen fridge manufacturers pack their products with all manner of technological additions, from iPod docks to touch screens and TVs. In most households though the humble fridge remains a central place to stick notes that are sure to be seen. Whirlpool has saved us the hassle of hunting for a scrap of paper on which to scribble and the magnet to hold it with What kind of finish does the Amana jot fridge have?

10) One theory is that the song was inspired by the banning of rock music in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini The song gives a fabulist account of the ban being defied by the population". The King orders jet fighters to bomb any people in violation of the ban. The pilots ignore the orders, and instead play rock music on their cockpit radios. The lyrics include a mixture of Arabic, Jewish, Urdu, and North African terms such as sharif, bedouin, sheikh, kosher, raga, muezzin, minaret, and casbah. "Rock the Casbah" originated when the Clash's manager asked facetiously , after a very long track them "does everything have to be as long as this raga?" Who was the The Clash’s manager?

11) Stopping to smell the roses is a good mantra to encourage you to take the time to appreciate what’s around you. Aromatherapy has become a popular form of alternative medicine. But another smell can reduce emotional stress more than roses. Scientists exposed lab rats to stressful conditions (presumably getting them to do some public speaking) while inhaling and not inhaling this. Those exposed to this scent did not go into stress overdrive. What is this scent that measurably reduces stress?

12) The i-Aroma is loaded with 6 base oils and attached to a PC via USB cable. Japanese company NTT Com is hoping to attract volunteers for the Fragrance Communication trials. An astrologist and aroma therapist will determine what scents are mixed and released into the air notably fragrances for various aspects of daily life such as walking, working and sleeping. A company named DigiScents tried this sort of thing for a while back in the late 1990s and had big dreams, which bombed, of scent-enabled websites. Its product was called what?

13) He moved to France and through a grant from Louis XIV of France helped to set up the Paris Observatory, which he remained director of until his death. He was the first to observe four of Saturn's moons, and discovered divisions in the rings of Saturn in 1675. and shares credit for the discovery of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter . He was an astrologer and an astronomer.. His method of determining longitude using eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter as a clock measured the size of France accurately for the first time. The country turned out to be considerably smaller than expected, . Who was the man The sun king quipped had taken more of his kingdom from him than he had won in all his wars.

14) The Russian Navy has declassified records of encounters with undersea UFOs during the Cold War. Their records detail underwater encounters at the world's oldest and deepest freshwater lake, 25 million years, and 5,000 feet In one case in 1982 a group of military divers training there spotted a group of humanoid creatures dressed in silvery suits. The encounter happened at a depth of 50 meters, and the men tried to catch the strangers. Three of the seven divers died, while four others were severely injured." Fans of the 1989 movie The Abyss are familiar with the storyline. What is the name of this lake where close encounters of the fishy kind occurred?

15) Actually, these are not my words but the commentary of the consistently excellent Boris Johnson writing in the UK Daily Telegraph about the Nanny State mentality. In describing ubiquitous signage warning of water being wet, slippery rocks being slippery and the sheer drop off a mountain being an “edge of cliff” Mr. Johnson gives this year’s winner of the prize for the Most Successful Special Interest Group to them?

The 1st Question 59 - 21 Jul 09

2009-07-22T23:54:00.000+01:00

This Week’s Panel

Nexeus Fatale, Delinda Dyrssen, Rysan Fall & Perplexity Peccable

Quotes

One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition.
Alvin Toffler

I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got.
Walter Cronkite

Word UP of the week – Twidiculous - people who tweet what silly things like what they had for lunch
Delinda Dyrssen

Audience member saying of the week – “Muting is like grounding”
Pim Peccable

Questions
For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) There are other more well known names for this creature but Mogollon Monster, Momo the Monster, Nuk-luk, Old Yellow Top, Mono Grande, Yowie & the Fear liath as it is called in Scotland are some. Do you what urban legend these words describe?

2) He was the one responsible for the phrase “Warts & All” when asked if he wanted to be prettied up for his official portrait. He couldn’t have been prettied up from within. He exiled thousands of prisoners to Barbados (and Jamaica) to farm sugar cane. In 1701 there were 25000 slaves in Barbados, of which 21700 were white. The Redlegs are survivors of the indentured servants in Barbados during the seventeenth century. Who sent them there to begin with?

P:3) He originally had intended to study astronomy, however while serving in the German army, he almost died. His sister many miles away had a feeling he was in danger and got her father to telegram him. This astonished him so much that he switched to study psychology. His main contribution to medicine and neurology was the systematic study of the electrical activity of human brain and the development of electroencephalography (EEG), f and was also the first to describe the different waves or rhythms which were present in the normal and abnormal brain, such as the alpha . Disturbed by the consequences of the Second World War and National Socialism to his professional and private world, he committed suicide by hanging himself in 1941. Who was he?

4) WellAWARE Systems has created a passive monitoring system for older people who may need assistance, but prefer to live independently Monitoring key wellness indicators, such as eating, sleeping, bathing, activity, toilet use, and psycho-social aspects. Science fiction fans saw this one coming from a long way off. In his 1951 collection of short stories The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury writes about a similar kind of system in his classic short story The Veldt. What was the name of this Home that clothed fed and rocked them to sleep?

5) This remarkable hockey team was based in Manitoba. And founded in 1911 with a roster of entirely Icelandic players who were not able to play on the other Winnipeg teams due to racial prejudice. In their first season, they finished at the bottom of their league. But i8 years later they won big and went on to play in the first modern Olympics in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium. And soundly beating all their opponents, won the first Olympic Gold Medal in Hockey for Canada & the first Olympic Gold Medal in ice hockey.. What is the name of this historic team?

6) The Committee of Safety, formally the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety, was a 13-member council composed of American, & European Hawaiian citizens that planned and carried out the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The goal of this group was to achieve annexation of Hawaii to the United States, which occurred in 1898 when Congress approved a joint resolution of annexation. The stage was set for this in 1887, when they forced King David Kalākaua to enact a constitution that stripped almost 75% of the native population of voting rights. Who forced him to sign the constitution under bayonet?

7) Security theater is a component of the culture of fear and consists of security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve it. Security Theater gains importance both by satisfying and exploiting the gap between perceived risk and actual risk. Security theater encourages people to make uninformed, counterproductive political decisions as the feeling of (and wish for) safety can actually increase the real risk, and large economic costs aiding only those who wish to exploit or profit from it. The term Security Theatre was coined by him. Who is he?

H:8) Around the age of thirteen, he had a recurring dream that he was in a bookstore, trying to find an issue of Astounding Magazine, which would reveal the secrets of the universe.. His later works reflect his personal interest in metaphysics and theology, often drawing upon his own life experiences: addressing the nature of drug use, paranoia and schizophrenia. He was a "fictionalizing philosopher, married 5 times, Robert Heinlein bailed him out of financial trouble & Paul Giametti will play him in a movie soon called the owl in the daylight. After he died he was "resurrected" by his fans in the form of a remote-controlled android which was misplaced in 2006, and it has not yet been found. Who was this original science fiction writer who explored themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states?

9) Born Christa Päffgen, she was a German singer-songwriter, fashion model, actress, and Warhol Superstar. She had a bit part in La Dolce Vita and starred in the 1966 art film Chelsea Girls, which she named her solo debut album after. She was also a heroin addict for over 15 years. Her comeback concert at CBGB in early 1980 was glowingly reviewed in The New York Times. She died in 1988 after a bicycling accident, just shy of her 50th birthday. Who was this Velvet underground legend, lover of Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Jackson Browne, Brian Jones, Tim Buckley, Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop?

10) She was a Greek scholar from Alexandria and considered the first notable woman in mathematics, who also taught philosophy and astronomy She lived in Roman Egypt, and was killed by a Christian mob who blamed her for religious turmoil. Some suggest that her murder marked the end of the Hellenistic Age, & she worked as teacher of philosophy, teaching the works of Plato and Aristotle. Who was this famous woman of history, who Skylar Smythe recently produced and directed a smash hit play here of?

11) In the Crash of 1929, his family lost almost everything and moved to Gravesend, Brooklyn, where as a teenager, he delivered bread every morning before school to help make ends meet. In 1940 he wrote The Man Who Had All the Luck, which was produced yet closed after four performances. He was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 40s to early 60s, a period during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was married to Marilyn Monroe. He traveled to Salem, Massachusetts to research the witch trials of 1692. And wrote a famous allegorical play in which he likened the situation with the House Un-American Activities Committee to the witch hunt in Salem.
Award winning and controversial playwright. Who died at the age of 89-year-old intending to marry his 34-year-old minimalist painter girlfriend?

12) This designer’s project originated from an "impact" brief and news about a British streaker who jumped into the Japanese Emperor's palace moat. She was interested in this news & wanted to represent this principle. Since the invention and proliferation of the photocopier, office clowns around the world have been united in a single desire - particularly around Christmas party time. Ignoring the hazard of broken glass and the virtual certainty of dismissal should they be discovered, thousands of pranksters annually drop their strides or hike their skirts and enjoy the age-old ritual of photocopying their backsides for their innocent co-workers to find in the out tray. This Japanese woman has designed a chair for this very purpose. What is this called?

13) He lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut and it is his library which made me swoon. This is a man after Pooky’s wee heart.. Stuffed with landmark tomes and eye-grabbing historical objects-on the walls, on tables, standing on the floor-the room occupies 3,600 square feet on three mazelike levels. Is that a Sputnik? (Yes.) are those books bound in rubies. (Yes.) Gee, that chandelier looks like the one in the James Bond flick Die Another Day. (It is.). A 1665 Bills of Mortality chronicle of London (you can track plague fatalities by week), the instruction manual for the Saturn V rocket (which launched the Apollo 11 capsule to the moon), a framed napkin from 1943 on which Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined his plan to win World War II. and an original copy of the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle, the first illustrated history book According to the 1999 Forbes 400, his net worth once topped $4 billion, which was almost entirely Priceline.com stock. Much was lost during the dot-com crash. Who is this man of treasure?

14) As we commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo moon landing this week, it’s worth asking what happened to those old dreams of lunar colonies and missions to Mars. NASA is reportedly struggling thanks to a general lack of interest and, it claims, funding. But, even with $187 billion, their Project Constellation is unlikely to reach the moon before 2020. The best hope right now seems to be driven by the private sector: Google’s $30 million Lunar X PRIZE which is a deceptively simple competition: safely land a robot on the surface of the moon. Odyssey Moon, first team to register wants to “capitalize on commercial opportunities and is backed by one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. And it has its first paying client, from what country?
15) This skyscraper is capable of providing a sprawling urban populous with food, the reuse of natural resources and biodegradeable waste. Called the Dragonfly it represents an extension of vertical farming, and use of renewable energy resources such as solar, wind and tide-turbine power. The space between the pair of "wings" would use solar energy to accumulate warm air within the structure during winter months, and the design of the spine would efficiently separate and recirculate waste products from plants, humans beings and animals. The importance of research into this area is huge the UN predicts by 2025, worldwide urban population have risen from 3.1 billion to 5.5 billion. The long-term effect would seem to far outweigh the short-term cost. In what City will this very hopefully be found?

16) Its not Smell-o-vision and it’s not aromatherapy but this company has come up with a the fragrance designed as an abstract vision for a scent. The fragrance contains the scent of leather and minerals--to evoke watchbands and the quartz mechanism--and also top notes meant to evoke electricity. The point, is a "glam future"--to hark back to the 1960s and 1970s. "Futurism used to be optimistic, not terrifying, The Company began in 2004, around the idea of telling time as a linear graph. What is the company who made a watch perfume called?

17)ATMs from this country have gone hot with their latest means of fighting thieves - they are now equipped with pepper spray. The cash machines make use of cameras and special software that detect miscreants tampering with the card slots. The autonomous ATM apparently makes the decision to use pepper spray without the assistance of a human operator. But the mechanism backfired in one incident last week when pepper spray was inadvertently inhaled by three technicians who required treatment from paramedics. In what country does the attack ATM’s exist?

18) Usually, when a young baby cries, the cause is one of three things. They are hungry, tired or need their diaper changed. if not this they are sick! -An inventor and parent set about searching for an ink pigment with heat-sensitive molecules. And spent six years and over USD 1.15million working with scientists to embed the pigment into cotton baby suits. The baby suits come in pastels but if the child’s temperature rises above 98.6, the suit turns white, instantly alerting you that they are too hot what is the name of this?

The 1st Question 58 - 14 Jul 09

2009-07-18T13:38:00.003+01:00

This Week’s Panel

Charlie Navarathna, Wynx Whiplash, Filthy Fluno & Marc Montague

Quotes

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.
John Kenneth Galbraith

I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.
Duane Michals

Never wear anything that panics the cat.
P. J. O'Rourke

Word – UP of the week
"mooncrookies" - the circles and bags under eyes resulting from the antics of a person up all night under the influence of a full moon.
Charlie Navarantha

E.g. upon rising, Cassandra went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and sighed when she saw the dark mooncrookies under her eyes.

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

P:1) David Merrill, of MIT is the inventor of these interactive electronic building blocks which he demonstrated at the 2009 TED conference. They are a platform for physical interaction with information and media. Each one has sensing, feedback, and wireless communication capabilities, making them a mashup of tangible interface and sensor network. The platform is collaboration with Jeevan Kalanithi (of taco lab.) What is this revolution in Cookie-Scale Computing called?

2) It is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time. At present, most research is concerned with the use of live video imagery. Commonly known examples are the yellow "first down" line seen in broadcasts of American football games, and the colored trail showing location and direction of the puck in hockey games. What is this kind of imagery called that uses graphics in real time called?

3) He was a German civil engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the world's first functional program-controlled computer, the Z3, in 1941 He started working in his parents' apartment in 1936, his first attempt, was called the Z1, In 1946 he founded one of the earliest computer companies: his capital was raised with an IBM option on his patents The Z4 was finished in 1950. At that time, it was the only working computer in continental Europe, and only the second computer in the world to be sold, only beaten by the BINAC.. he made it to the Z22, the first computer with a memory based on magnetic storage. Who was the man who also suggested digital physics, that the universe itself is running on a grid of computers?

4) The inventor of this data engine is a British physicist, software developer, mathematician, author and businessman, known for his work in theoretical particle physics, cosmology, and complexity theory. At 16, he published an article on particle physics and the following year entered Oxford . He is the author of the controversial book A New Kind of Science. His conclusion is that the universe is digital in its nature, and runs on fundamental laws which can be described as simple programs: cellular automata. In March of this year he announced, a computational data engine with a new approach to knowledge extraction and an easy-to-use interface. His engine is not a search engine in that it does not simply return a list of results based on a query, but instead attempts to compute an answer to its input & this could be as important as Google. What is this knowledge engine called, and /or who is its inventor?

5) One of his inspirations is from a 1937 lecture by Sherrington. In it the brain is described "as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the brain becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns." And so he said, "I got interested in virtual reality because I wanted to be able to visualize brain-like circuits, as a model for artificial neural systems. I want to design, analyze, and simulate systems designed on the principles of biology." He developed eLoom, and using theory, simulation and virtual environments to understand how brains work. He created the University of New Mexico’s Visualization Lab in 1998 to advance the science of visualization and virtual environments so they can more effectively amplify human comprehension. Who is this man who coined the term Augmented Reality?

6) The term describes a market situation where sales of a product decline due to consumer anticipation of the product's successor. It originates from the supposed demise of this home computer, when in 1983, its inventor pre-announced several next-generation computer models (the "Executive" and "Vixen" models), which had not yet been built, highlighting the fact that they would outperform the existing model. Accordingly, sales of the first immediately plummeted as customers opted to wait for the more advanced systems, leading to a sales decline from which the company was unable to recover. What is the name of this effect?

7) It is a handheld gaming console which was released by Tiger Telematics in 2005.and was supposed to use The Smart Adds system as a way for consumers to subsidize part of the cost. displaying advertisements at random intervals. These advertisements would be downloaded via the device's GPRS data connection and would be targeted based on data inputted directing users to the nearest store carrying the advertised product. Launched with a line-up of fourteen titles with all were canceled before their release due to bankruptcy. What happened? A future better model was announced just a few weeks before the original US launch prompting some not to buy and instead wait for the improved model. Sales did not recover. What was this that gave us a classic case of the Osborne effect?

8) The magnetosphere of this planet is the largest and most powerful of any and the largest known continuous structure in the Solar System after the heliosphere. It’s existence was first inferred from observations of radio emissions at the end of 1950s and was directly observed by the Pioneer 10 spacecraft in 1973. The internal magnetic field is generated by electrical currents flowing in its outer core, which is composed of metallic hydrogen. Volcanic eruptions on it’s moon eject large amounts of sulfur dioxide gas into space, forming a large torus around the planet, which loads the magnetic field with plasma. Its aurorae have been observed in almost all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum including infrared, visible, ultraviolet and soft X-rays. What is the name of this planet?

9) The Book of the Moon is the definitive Moon book (even surpassing goodnight Moon) - it covers ancient fascination and study, mythology as well as scientific advancement and even medicinal ones. The author is a British Film Director who recently interviewed Buzz Aldrin onstage in London. Buzz told him ‘And there’s one person on earth who really understands the moon’s magnificent desolation.’ Who is this man ?

10) In March 2009 Honda created an interface that allows the control of an Asimo robot using thought alone via EEG. Now this car company and RIKEN have teamed up to create a revolutionary wheelchair steered by mind control. This remarkable development is one of the first practical uses of EEG signals. Designed for people with severe disabilities, the wheelchair is fitted with an EEG detector in the form of a electrode array skull cap, a cheek puff detector brake and a display that assists with control. Each signal is a composite of the electrical activity of billions of brain cells working in unison. Which car company name is behind this?

11) She was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities and one of the oldest. Often described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth, virginity, fertility, the hunt, and often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows. The deer and the cypress were sacred to her. What is the Greek name deity the Romans worshipped as Diana

12) Giving robots a taste for flesh might not seem like a great idea given that they’re probably going to rise up and enslave us in the next few decades. But that’s just what a couple of UK-based designers have done with their prototype flesh-eating robotic clock. The fuel cell is able to produce a current by mimicking chemical interactions found in nature. This current is then used to drive the rollers and power the LCD clock display. The designers believe that robots will need to pull their weight and blend with the furniture if they are going to be accepted into people’s homes. To that end they’ve also designed a coffee table that is designed to catch and digest mice, and a lampshade inspired by carnivorous pitcher plants. What is the flesh eating robotic clock currently eating?

13) A 1908 French satirical novel by Nobel Prize winning author Anatole France, called penguin island, narrates the fictional history of a population of these birds which are mistakenly baptized by a nearsighted missionary. The last population however lived on Geirfuglasker off Iceland. When the colony was initially discovered in 1835, nearly fifty birds were present. Museums, desiring the skins for preservation and display, quickly began collecting them from the colony. They were extinct in 1844. They are known to have been preyed upon by Neanderthals over 100,000 years ago as well-cleaned bones have been found by their campfires. Native Americans also valued it as a food source, because it tasted like chicken. Found in great numbers on islands off eastern Canada, Northern Europe and Great Britain, What is this now extinct species of bird believed to have mated for life?

14) The lofty ambitions of the Solar Impulse project are approaching reality with a fully assembled prototype unveiled to the public for the first time late last month. Entirely powered by the sun, the aircraft has a giant wingspan of 61 meters and is covered in almost 12,000 solar cells. .The plane’s four motors each achieve no more than what the Wright Brothers had available to them in 1903. As a result, the Solar Impulse can only average speeds of around 43.5mph And the only way a plane that slow will stay in the air is to have an enormous wingspan, comparable to that of an Airbus A340. What percentage of the plane’s flight is powered by the sun?

15) The Trans-Saharan gas pipeline (also known as NIGAL pipeline and Trans-African gas pipeline) is a planned natural gas pipeline. The annual capacity of which would be up to 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and is expected to be operational by 2015. Investment for the pipeline will be around US$10 billion and for gas gathering centers around $3 billion. It is seen as an opportunity to diversify the European Union's gas supplies. Name one of the 3 countries directly involved with this

16) His doctoral thesis established the quantum theory of solids, using waves to describe the electrons. He studied with Pauli in Zürich, Bohr in Copenhagen and Fermi in Rome before he went back to Leipzig. In 1933, immediately after Hitler came to power, he left Germany, emigrating to work at Stanford University in 1934, where he became the first professor for theoretical physics. During WW II he worked on atomic energy at Los Alamos. After the war he concentrated on investigations into nuclear induction and nuclear magnetic resonance, which are the underlying principles of MRI. Who was the man who with Edward Mills Purcell was awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for "their development of new ways and methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements."

17) It is a new, very promising (although still in its infancy) technology in which the intrinsic spin of electrons, rather than the value of a voltage like in today's electronics, is used to store and transport information to be interpreted as either a "1" or a "0". Advantages of semiconductor-based applications of this sort are lower power use and a smaller footprint than electrical devices used for information processing Topological insulators have the property of opposing no resistance at all to an electrical flow next to their surface, making them much more fit to practical applications. What is this infant field, also known as magnetoelectronics?

The 1st Question 56 - 30 Jun 09

2009-06-30T00:08:00.000+01:00

Quotes

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Helen Keller

If you don't like what you're doing, you can always pick up your needle and move to another groove.
Timothy Leary

Winning Word Up of the week
"Inworldly" - knowing and of inworld society
Malburns Writer

Audience Quote of the Week- (taken from the chat log of actual show)
Doubledown Tandino: silver surfer is stealing lines from Helen Keller?!?!?!
Hayduke Ebisu: Edward Everett Hale did say it first
Doubledown Tandino: thats gotta be blogged

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) It is a famous star among amateur and professional astronomers. it is the fifth brightest star in the sky only 25 light years away. And twice as massive as the Sun, bright and nearby, it rotates in less than a day, the Sun's rotation period is 27 days. The force induced by this rapid rotation generates temperature variations of more than 1000 degrees also surrounded by a disk of dust, which in this case suggest the presence of planets, what is this star which also possesses a magnetic field?

2) Juniper Networks has announced what it says is the industry's first 100 Gigabit Ethernet router to address what the company calls the “new generation of scale” Providing an order of magnitude increase 100 GbE interfaces should also make it easier to deploy high-capacity services like video and high gig wireless broadband. "What Telecommunications company is poised to commercially deploy this?

3) The word is a brand name that Buckminster Fuller used for several of his inventions. It is a portmanteau coined for Fuller approximately in 1928 by Waldo Warren, an advertising expert who had previously become known by inventing the word "radio" for what people used to call "the wireless" A brand name was needed for the display of Fuller's first architectural model, and Warren spent two days listening to him, trying to get a feel for the type of language he used and played randomly with syllables from typical Fuller words, until this word was born, what is it?

4) The two countries share a common history and have often joined forces with Japan to resist international calls to reduce commercial whaling. Both countries have resisted signing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. One of these countries was colonized by the other in medieval times, The first wave probably started in 860. And when the colonized country had a 2008–2009 financial crisis, the colonizing government provided a €500 million 5-year loan. What are these two countries that still hunt whales for food.

5) She was born in Dundee, Scotland, and at the age of 14, became a pupil-teacher. She married, moved to the U.S. and settled in Boston, when she was 21. While pregnant with her son, her husband abandoned her, and she had to find work to support herself. She worked as a maid in the home of a Professor at Harvard College Observatory When he became frustrated with his male assistants he famously declared his maid could do a better job. So she did. Hired to do clerical work at the observatory, she devised and helped implement a system of assigning stars a letter according to how much hydrogen could be observed in their spectra. 1888, she discovered the Horsehead nebula, edited the observatory's publications and In 1899, was given the title of Curator of Astronomical Photographs. Who was made an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, and the first American woman to be so elected?

6) Founded in the late 1940s in California, likely through an amalgamation of different motorcycle clubs, such as the Boozefighters. they are "one percenters"
a response to the American Motorcyclist Association comment that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens and the last 1% were outlaws. The full requirements to become a member of this outfit are the following: a valid driver's license, working motorcycle and cannot be a child molester or have applied to become a police officer or prison guard. Who is this group, incorporated in the US and Canada that sued Disney in 2007 for using its logo in Wild Hogs?

7) No television personality of the 1950s enjoyed more clout or fame than he until an on-camera incident undermined his folksy image - he helmed two CBS-TV weekly series and a daily mid-morning show through most of that decade. He found that one way to enhance his pitches was to poke fun at the sponsors and it grew the sales. His immense popularity and the trust placed in him by audiences was noticed not just by advertisers but by his friend U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, who asked him to record a number of public service announcements to be played on American television in the case of nuclear war. Luckily we never had to hear them. He was against racism, pro-environment, the first man to ever make the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine-Who was the man who acted as inspiration for A Face In The Crowd?

8) His father was an illustrator of Mad Magazine and Weird Science. His primary residence is a hexagonal, shed style mansion- with such things as hallways resembling mine shafts, a collection of vintage wheelchairs, secret passages, a torture chamber, and a huge cast-iron steam engine which once belonged to Henry Ford built into the house which he had converted into kinetic sculpture. He is well down the road in the development of a new bike that combines electric power and a radical generator which will allow it to burn almost any fuel. Who is this man head of Deka, and known for inventing the Segway human transport? he is about to unveil a car that also will burn on any fuel..

9) Not that it's particularly likely, but as long as nuclear bombs exist, there's the chance - however slim - that one might go off somewhere near you. This little Google Maps overlay might be a bit morbid, but it's also pretty fascinating. It shows you the heat, pressure and fallout spread of a range of different nuclear bombs detonating anywhere in the world. This map shows the damage caused by a nuclear explosion.
Search for a place, pick a weapon and press "Nuke It!" For the fallout map, it assumes a light breeze over about 6 hours. What is it called?

10)A tamper-proof control that allows the setting and enforcement of time limits to game playing, simply by plugging the games unit into a timer. “Just 10 minutes more” and “when I’ve get to the next level…” are familiar refrains, often causing friction and arguments. Especially when your child wants their dinner. An ESA study also stated that 49 percent of those playing games are aged between 18 and 49 years of age and 26 percent are over 50, which suggests that the game timer may also work just as well on partners and spouses. With 40 percent of today's gamers being female, it's just as likely to be girlfriends and wives. Which company has made the GameDr Video Game Timer?

The 1st Question 55 - 23 Jun 09

2009-06-25T18:06:00.001+01:00

Quotes

Books are men of higher stature; the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.
Garson Kanin

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
George Santayana

Dramshackled: Held back by ennui; "His dull life left him dramshackled.”
Word-UP winner - Dusan Writer

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Repliee R-1 is a robot child created by roboticists at Osaka University. Based on a five-year-old girl; her lifelike silicone skin, 50 sensors and lots of motors allow her to come close to human. If you think Repliee is a bit creepy, you're not alone. Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori remarked in 1970 that, as robots become more humanlike in appearance, people will respond more positively. However, a point will be reached where people will be strongly repulsed; acceptance will fall. What is this area called where things that are too real are perceived as repulsive?

2) A non-typical galaxy, known as a ring galaxy, it has interested amateur astronomers as much as its uncommon structure has fascinated professionals. The galaxy is named after the man who discovered it in 1950 and identified it as either a planetary nebula or a peculiar galaxy with 8 billion stars. A nearly perfect ring of young hot blue stars circle the older yellow nucleus of this ring galaxy ~600 million light-years away in the constellation Serpens. What is it?

3) Nicknamed Parisot, he was born into a noble French family. In 1541 he was captured and made a galley slave by Barbary pirates. He became a Grand master of the Knights Hospitaller, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege. His fortification soon became the home port of one of the Mediterranean's most powerful navies and the island's hospitals were the finest in the world The Church of St. John the Baptist, boasted works by Caravaggio and others. who was this Great Knight of Malta, legend of the seas and more?

4) This product from Contech is a novel way to keep in touch your dog or cat while you’re out of the house. The bowl allows you to record a personal message for your pet and plays it back to them whenever they approach the bowl. The design incorporates a removable electronic "Talkbox" for recording messages and a photoelectric cell which detects changes in light when your pet approaches triggering playback. What is this called?

5) This describes the observation in physical cosmology that the velocity at which various galaxies are receding from the earth is proportional to their distance from us. The law was first formulated in 1929 after nearly a decade of observations. It is considered the basis for the expanding space paradigm and today serves as one of the pieces of evidence most often cited in support of the Big Bang model. What is this law we all must obey?

6) Seemingly straight out of Q’s arsenal this features a full color 1.8-inch LCD screen as well as a voice recorder and tiny camera that can record video and take photos. A mini-USB port is used to transfer files to and from the device, which supports MP3, and JPG multimedia formats and has a memory capacity of 4GB. The rechargeable battery provides roughly 8 hours of audio playback, what is it?

7) In quantum physics this states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known. That is, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known. The more precise the position, the less precise the momentum, and vice versa. What is this principle called?

8) It efficiently transfers human pedal power to drive wheels enclosed within a monorail track. The designer describes it as a high efficiency, no emission urban transport system. It is part of the Race thru Space adventure park ride in world famous Agrodome in New Zealand, and could come to a city near you. What is this person powered bicycle monorail called?

9) This story has died in the US-but it’s a tale worth telling- Two men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of US treasury bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy and this is news- only 3 nations could move that amount of debt one of them the US of course, one of the others is china, In the absence of clear explanations coming from the Treasury, conspiracy theories are filling the void. What was in their suitcase makes them the 4th largest holders of US government debt in the world. What is the third country which could have this much US treasury debt, and also the nationality of these two men??

10) Researchers at the University of Central Florida have engineered nanoparticles that can target and destroy cancerous cells, delivering a drug directly to a tumor without harming healthy cells. Research into nanoparticles for cancer treatment has shown increasing promise in recent years. Loaded with a cancer fighting drug called Taxol, which were then “clicked” together with folic acid molecules, cancer cells like to consume them in large amounts. If treatment is successful what could this mean the end of for cancer patients?

11) The Wikimedia Foundation plans to launch an editable, video encyclopedia to complement its text-based online encyclopedia. . The aim is to revolutionize the existing site by allowing open-source video to be accessible to the general public. In the future, users may also be able to be import video content directly from the web. At first, the videos will be sourced from three repositories: the Internet Archive; Wikimedia Commons, and where else?

12) This company claims to have come up with a quick and easy solution for the legions of stressed out workers who are missing out on meals because they are tied to their desks. A portable microwave oven called the Beanzawave with miniature dimensions and it’s power provided by connecting it to a USB port on a desktop PC or laptop. This offers numerous scenarios for enjoying hot meals on the go. What company developed the Beanzawave to make sure workers didn’t skip meals?

13) Ever wished you were a 7-foot tall semi-centaur with the body of a human and a horse's legs? Seattle-based fantasy artist Kim Graham has come up with a killer Halloween costume that makes you 14 inches taller and gives you uncanny-looking equine legs and spring-loaded cloven hooves. The effect is quite amazing, and even a bit sexy. A set of legs like these can be yours for under USD$1000. What are they called?

14)He is an English computer game designer and game programmer. He is responsible for well known God games Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and Black & White, among others, as well as Theme Park and Fable . His Lionhead Studios, bought by Microsoft is behind Project Natal which is the code name for "controller-free gaming on the Xbox 360. It enables interaction without the need to touch anything using voice recognition and body movements. .Anyone who saw the Milo & Kate video and was wowed will certainly be looking forward to it – Who announced and is the legend behind it?

15) The launch of the European Space Agency’s mission, on May 6, put into orbit a new tool —the microwave equivalent of polarized sunglasses — that may offer a view of the dawn of time. Before the first galaxies, before the first stars, there was light —the brilliant glow of radiation created during the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago. Instruments on this craft will explore this radiation in exquisite and unprecedented detail. The mission is named after a great Nobel Prize winning physicist – what is it called?

16) Tree shaping, known under a variety of names, is the art and technique of growing and shaping trunks, branches and roots of trees and other woody plants. By grafting, shaping, and pruning or guiding branches, trees are made to grow into ornamental or useful shapes. A method of tree shaping was developed by artists Peter Cook and Becky Northey. They have made chairs, figures and even mirrors. They called their work by this name- what is it?

17) This hydrogen-powered two-seater capable of 50mph and traveling more than 200 miles without refueling, was unveiled in London this week. Listen to this alternative business model driven by five fairly uncompromising principles: design a new kind of car; make its design and development completely open source; don't sell cars, but lease them; distribute manufacturing to small, local factories; and enable broader and more participatory ownership. The car is just 772lbs and produces greenhouse gas emissions 33% less than the latest hybrid cars. What is the name of this car with Wikipedia-like open collaboration?

18) This tag game often played in a swimming pool where the players have to seek out others using sound not sight. This has inspired robots who study changes in the sensory output of their targets, and use the information to predict where their targets are likely to go. So far, it has allowed robots to apprehend targets moving in a straight line at a constant speed, but researchers hope they can get the robots to compensate for evasive action. What game of tag is this named after?

19) Universalis Cosmographia, is a wall map of the world drawn by a German cartographer originally published in 1507. It was one of the first maps to chart latitude and longitude precisely, following the example of Ptolemy, and was the first map to use the name "America". The map depicts North and South America as two large continents. . The name "America" is placed on South America, this being the first map known to use this name. As explained the name was bestowed in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. What is this map which was bought for 10 million dollars by the Library of Congress?

The 1st Question 53 - 2 Jun 09

2009-06-04T23:15:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Jasmine Night for her Word-UP “Phonesia" which means when you pick up the phone to make a call and you have forgotten who you have dialed!

Quotes

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
George Bernard Shaw

I used to be a heavy gambler. But now I just make mental bets. That's how I lost my mind.
Steve Allen

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Professor Peter Davis instilled discipline in and provided musical training to this otherwise self-taught man. Eventually making him a band leader. His Home band played around New Orleans and this thirteen year old musical genius began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. He left New Orleans in 1922, joining the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in Chicago. Who was this great coronet player?

2) In the MMORPG Tabula Rasa, it refers to a mysterious power. However in Ancient Greece, Aristotle defined this as argument from reason, one of the three modes of persuasion. The other two modes are pathos persuasion by means of emotional appeal, and ethos, persuasion through convincing listeners of one's moral competence. An argument based on this third mode implies numbers, polls, and other mathematical or scientific data. It was also the name of a ship in The Matrix. What word is this?

3) A 360-degree spherical panorama of a beach in Saint Martin, from 9 images which uses stereographic projection to create a globe is called the "little planet" effect. In geometry, this projection is a particular mapping function that put a sphere onto a plane, with some inevitable compromises.
In practice, the projection is carried out by computer or by hand using a special kind of graph paper. What is this paper called?

4) He first became corporate lawyer for the railroad company but His next move was to "cross the tracks," and represent Eugene V. Debs. However He was indicted later on in his career on bribery charges and labor unions dropped him from their list. He devoted himself to opposing the death penalty, which he felt to be in conflict with humanitarian progress. In one of his last trials, he gave a 'Speech that Changed the World' given the name 'I Believe in the Law of Love'. He is, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb and defending John T. Scopes, (the Scopes trial resulted in a $100 fine.) Who was this “sophisticated country lawyer", and civil libertarian?.

5) “They were the inevitable end product of that striving for realism which began when men started to reproduce moving images and to record sounds, and then to use these techniques to enact scenes from real or imaginary life. In the sagas
The entranced spectator was cut off from reality as long as the adventure lasted; it was as if he lived a dream yet believed he was awake.” This came from The City and the Stars, it is a very early reference to Virtual reality by this famous science fiction writer-Who proposed satellite communication systems in 1945 and retired to Sri Lanka to pursue a passion for scuba diving?

6) The Voice Interactive Alarm Clock lets you set the time and alarm with voice commands alone. This clever clock will respond to verbal queries like "What time is it?" it is the first alarm clock that is voice responsive. Responding to a total of 12 commands. It will appeal to all people that want to interact with their alarm clock. The IVR Alarm Clock is continuously screening conversations, waiting for the user to initiate by saying, “Hello Moshi. " What is country is the clock from?

7) In philosophy, it is an element used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of our ideas of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, and meaning. It is drawn from the idea, common to many science fiction stories, that a mad scientist might remove a person's brain from the body, suspend it in life-sustaining liquid, and connect its neurons by wires to a supercomputer which would provide it with electrical impulses. The person with the "disembodied" brain would continue to have perfectly normal conscious experiences without these being related to objects or events in the real world. What is this called?

8) It is a new service just introduced minutes ago and is a tool that combines email and messaging, keeping track of conversations. It has a feature that allows you to bring in new users immediately. The entire conversation, or portions thereof, can be placed immediately into you blog as well. They showed four people simultaneously editing a document; pretty cool stuff. It also handles different languages in the same document, for those global multilingual conversations. An early read the Joymaker device from the 1965 novel The Age of the Pussyfoot, also offered strong collaborative features. What is this new service from Google they will introduce in the fall called?

9) He was the youngest of ten children and went to Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1821.he served as a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. As a senator he argued against secession but believed each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to it. When offered him a Federal commission as a brigadier general, He declined the appointment, arguing that the United States Constitution gives the power of appointing militia officers to the states, and not to the Federal government. Yet he urged the preservation of the Union. Though he resisted demands to secede, he was elected, never completing his term of President Who was the man who did complete A Short History of the Confederate States of America?

10) It is a toy-like biomorphic robot preprogrammed with moves; it also can be controlled by an infrared remote control included with the toy, or by a personal computer, or an infrared transmitter-. Mark Tilden designed it to be easily modified or hacked. A growing community of hackers has devoted themselves to adding new functionality to the robot. Some hacks have added a live video camera, others an LED belt that displays text, headlights, a coil gun, speech synthesis, a "flamethrower" (a small torch) and Homer Simpson. What is this toy from WowWee?

11) Your dream of taking a ride into space just took a big step forward with Virgin Galactic announcing the completion of phase one testing on the rocket motor that will propel SpaceShipTwo into suborbital space. The innovative rocket motor uses the largest hybrid Nitrous Oxide system of its kind in the world to achieve speeds over 2,500 mph and send amateur astronauts to heights over 65 miles above the Earth. Although the first space tourists will be shelling out a pretty penny (read US$200,000) for the right to be one of the first to take a commercial trip into space, they may be funding the next generation of high-speed international flights. SpaceShipTwo will be launched from the Virgin MotherShip or VMS What ?

12) Here the scenery is brought inside the home, or table, to be precise. Creating a very distinct ambience, this table is designed to defuse stress and create a peaceful, relaxed environment. It does this by running a river of water across the desk, under a glass top, and there’s even a sort of mini rapids effect so the water swishes on the pebbles. Claimed to be able to calm any room, what is the name of this table?

The 1st Question 52 - 26 May 09

2009-05-29T09:57:00.001+01:00

In accordance with our new segment Word-UP, we now have a word of the week-
Thank you Explorer Dastardly for “Bubbieliscious” which a word to describe herself.

Quotes

Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.
Omar N. Bradley

The human mind, if it is to keep its sanity, must maintain the nicest balance between unity and plurality.
Irving Babbitt

Literature is the question minus the answer.
Roland Barthes

Questions

For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv

1) Ahoy is used to hail a ship, a boat or a person, or to attract attention. Traditionally, when used from a ship to hail an approaching boat, the standard responses are: "aye aye", if a commissioned officer is in the boat. What is the correct response if there isn’t an officer in the boat?

2) This is a fictional foundation in the Lost television series. It was formed by an arms purveyor, who turned his attention from "keeping the world safe through the development of sophisticated weapons systems" to focus instead on the development of new technologies to "create a brighter future for all humanity." The greeting "Namaste" is used by the organization's members. What is the name of this?

3) Its coverlet senses patient respiration and heartbeat as well as movement. It's a zip-on mattress cover with an embedded sensor array, including pressure switches. The wall monitor presents this information, and transmits it to the other communication systems in the hospital. The technology transforms any hospital bed, which invisibly tracks a patient's basic vital signs without any connection to the patient whatsoever. However, if the patient begins to deteriorate, it immediately notifies the hospital nursing staff -- all invisible to the patient. Apparently, this system has been tested extensively. Star Trek fans (classic Trek, natch) recall the amazing sick bay beds that always knew everything about patients lying on them. What is this?

H: After the show he was told by one of the organizers that he ought to return to Memphis to resume his truck-driving career. In the 1960s, as the hippie counterculture movement built, the Opry maintained a straight-laced, conservative image; "longhairs" were almost never featured on the show. However one 60’s band did take the stage- which one was it?

5) He was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of U.S. wilderness. His direct activism helped to save the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club was founded by him. Left almost blind by an accident he devoted himself to his great love, nature and walked in 1867 from Indiana to Florida which he recounted in his book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. He camped with Roosevelt in Yosemite, convinced Robert Underwood Johnson to lobby Congress for the preservation for pristine lands and was among the first to realize the impact glaciers had in the formation of terrain. Who was he?

6) Australia's Entecho has come up with an operating prototype. Air is drawn into a ring of vents on the upper side of the aircraft, then forced downward through the rotors, which spin inside the shell of the aircraft. The resulting pressure differential lifts the aircraft off the ground with good hovering stability, even in crosswinds. And makes for a very simple and reportedly intuitive 360-degree steering process via a joystick. What is it?

7) He was an American stand-up comedian, writer, social critic and satirist of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial led to the first posthumous pardon in New York history. In 1951, he was arrested in Miami, for impersonating a priest, soliciting charitable donations. Later in his semi fictional autobiography “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People,” he revealed that he had made approximately $8,000 in three weeks, sending $2,500 to the leper colony and keeping the rest. He also wrote a children's film, The Rocket Man, and was asked by Frank Zappa to sign his draft card (he refused.) Who was he?

8) He graduated from West Point in 1915 as part of a class that contained many future generals, and which military historians have called "the class the stars fell on". 59 generals from that graduating class, including this man and Dwight Eisenhower. He taught mathematics at West Point- and has a reputation even today as a general who was very patient with the officers under his command, compared to his most famous colleague, George S. Patton, but the truth is complicated. He sacked more than a dozen generals during the Second World War with little provocation, whereas Patton actually fired only one and in Patton, Karl Malden played this man, who was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. And Chairman of the Board of the Bulova Watch Company? Who was he?

P: 9) A self-sustaining toilet concept from students that calls on yoga principles in its quest to define the lavatory of the future. The designers say that using this transcendental commode is "akin to yoga" because its ergonomics require a squatting position that strengthens abdominal and back muscles. The sustainable design reuses water and needs just one gallon of water for flushing. It's also free of mechanical parts and independent of electric power, with flushing dealt with via an electromagnetic ball valve. “We hope our design will alter the toilet archetype by the year 2030,” What is the ASU design team name for this toilet of the future?

H: 10)It is "the study of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits As a social movement it reached its height of popularity in the early decades of the 20th century. In Sweden, the "Sterilization Act of 1934" provided for the voluntary sterilization of some mental patients. At its pre-war zenith, the movement often pursued pseudoscientific notions of racial supremacy and purity By the end of World War II it had been largely abandoned,. - It’s post-war that the movement went into decline, of course because of “the Final Solution” Although one modern implementation of a form of this was a "genius sperm bank" (1980–99) created by Robert Klark Graham, from which nearly 230 children were conceived, What is this control by breeding called?

11Arcadia was supposed to be a haven for the French from Canada, but turned out to still be under this countries rule at the exodus of French. Two great fires destroyed the old French colonial buildings leaving the colony's new overlords to rebuild it according to more modern tastes—and strict new fire codes, which mandated that all structures be physically adjacent and close to the curb to create a firewall. When La Nouvelle Orléans was founded in 1718, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré ("Old Square" in French) as it was known then. Who rebuilt the City of New Orleans after the fires of the late 1700’s?

12) Strictly hush hush, as reported by the BBC- "No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted... In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world.” Royal Heads of state have attended the annual meetings,. Prominent politicians from North America and Europe are past attendees. In recent years, board members from IBM, Xerox, Royal Dutch Shell, Nokia and Daimler too. The original conference was held at a hotel in the Netherlands for which the group is named beginning in 1954. It was initiated to stem anti-Americanism in Western Europe, although the orchestrated fall of the USA has been a reported take away, according to Notes from Gollitsyn certainly the European Common market was hatched there. A record is made of the club’s discussions in which, however, the name of the speaker is never published. What is this organization where the only obligation is not to publish or disclose anything?

13) An amazing UFO formation was evident and captured on video. Multiple small ships were centered in a formation with 2 larger ones outside, while other footage taken that night shows a straight line of the lights. In what state did this recent sighting, now on YouTube, take place?