The 1st Question 76 - 15 Dec 09

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?