This is just the thing you hope never to see on a Monday morning after a long weekend of drinking.
Author: John
Radioactive Venom May Cure Cancer
This will either cure the cancer or give the patients super human abilities. OK, I realize that the radioactive part is an iodine tracer used to see where the venom is going in the body but the idea is cool. In a comic book sort of way.
The study showed that a synthetic version of a protein found in the venom of giant yellow Israeli scorpions targeted tumor cells but did not harm the healthy cells of brain cancer patients.
Look forward to a whole new crop of bad comic book references in the near future:
Other researchers are investigating whether a protein in snake venom can stop bleeding and whether Gila monster venom can treat diabetes. They also have developed a painkiller based on the venom of a deadly sea snail.
That’s right, he has the powers of the deadly sea snail! Yeah, Spiderman is quaking in his boots now.
[via slashdot]
Millions of OLPC Laptops Ordered
I’m all for kids having the option to better themselves through technology but these things have access to the Internet right? And a million of them have been ordered by Nigera? Umm, can you say ‘biggest scam mill on the planet? I hope not. I’m sure this won’t happen but you have to admit, it makes good Internet…
Four countries commit to buying 4 million Linux-powered OLPC laptops
Classic Plastic – Handheld Games of Yesteryear
This site brings back some fond memories of trying to get and LED from one end of a screen to another. Hey, it was fun when I was a kid.
[via ektopia]
HANDHELDEN © 660 handheld and tabletop games from the 1970s and 1980s
Solargraphy
This is a very cool photo project. PhD hopeful Tarja Trygg of Helsinki has been taking multi month long exposure pinhole photos of the sun .
"I began my experiments in May, 2002 with short exposure times and as I continued to research this method my interest has grown bigger and bigger like a snow ball rolling forward. I wanted to have solargraphs even to a half year exposure time."
Tarja relies on ‘can assistants’ around the world to place cameras at various latitudes. "I tried to make a global map of solargraphs. But it is not possible to do this alone. Of course I liked the idea to get a sponsor who would finance me traveling all around the world for installing my pinhole cameras all over the world. After that I would travel again to pick them up. But, because I have no sponsors and no money I thought it would be better to ask volunteers ‘can assistants’ to help me.’
This could be a great summer project for kids. Start the exposure now and when the winter break hits develope the image.
[via Pinhole Visions]
Apple Macbooks Shutting Down?
Could Apple’s Macbooks have a serious problem? I don’t mean the one where the plugs fall out or the cases turn colors when you use them, I mean that the notebooks will just up and quit on you. As documented here and here, at least one user is having just this problem. have any other of the shiny Apple users reported this problem yet, or is this smoothing that is yet to hit the blogosphere. I hope that this is an isolated event, I want to buy one of these puppies and would hate to discover that they hold some deep dark secret in the form of random power offs. That would suck, and not in a good way either.