Saturday, 19 June 2010

The First Question - 1 Jun 2010

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?
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