Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: where smart happens him Marshall Brain and welcome to this
Speaker 1: week's Friday news round up. Let's start by looking at
Speaker 1: several extreme forms of tourism that came to light this week.
Speaker 1: Virgin Galactic gave reporters a look at their new vehicle
Speaker 1: for space tourism, called Spaceship Too. If you google brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Space Tourism, you can find a video that takes
Speaker 1: you inside this spaceship. Virgin also announced Virgin Oceanic, which
Speaker 1: has a sub that's supposed to be able to handle
Speaker 1: the deepest oceans on Earth for the first time. That
Speaker 1: would be thirty seven thousand feet deep, or roughly the
Speaker 1: height of Mount Everest underwater. It's fascinating to think about this.
Speaker 1: Even today, with all our technology, there are parts of
Speaker 1: the ocean that have not yet been explored by people
Speaker 1: because we don't have a sub that can handle the depth.
Speaker 1: And this Virgin Oceanic sub will be able to explore
Speaker 1: the ocean in style. It's like an underwater fighter plane.
Speaker 1: You can google brain Stuff Virgin Oceanic to see the
Speaker 1: sub and understand what some of its missions might be.
Speaker 1: There were also interesting articles this week on excursions into
Speaker 1: two human exclusion zones and the amazing amount of wildlife
Speaker 1: that's flourishing inside of them. One exclusion zone surrounds the
Speaker 1: Chernobyl Nuclear power plant, and the other is in the
Speaker 1: demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. The Chernobyl exclusion
Speaker 1: zone is easy to understand. They just made this great,
Speaker 1: big circle around the power plant and decided to evacuate
Speaker 1: all the people and keep them out because of the radioactivity.
Speaker 1: The Demilitarized Zone is a strip that's two and a
Speaker 1: half miles wide and about a hundred and sixty miles
Speaker 1: long that's been fenced off to keep North and South
Speaker 1: Korea from killing each other. It's amazing what nature will
Speaker 1: do once people are eliminated from a piece of land
Speaker 1: like this. A new human exclusion zone has been created
Speaker 1: around Japan's stricken nuclear power plant that basically melted down
Speaker 1: after the earthquake. A thirty kilometer evacuation area is now
Speaker 1: virtually devoid of all people. A reporter went in this
Speaker 1: week with a camera to record the state of things,
Speaker 1: and some of it looks absolutely post apocalyptic, like a
Speaker 1: waste land. Parts of it were leveled completely by the tsunami,
Speaker 1: and then human beings were sucked out, and then radioactive
Speaker 1: waste from the reactors melt down ended up settling on
Speaker 1: the land, and all that's left now is the occasional
Speaker 1: stray dog or cow roaming free. Given the levels of
Speaker 1: radiation that he observed and documented, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: say what will happen to these hundreds of square kilometers
Speaker 1: of and in Japan going forward. If you check the
Speaker 1: brain Stuff blog, you can find the video that he took.
Speaker 1: There were also several technological fiascos reported this week, and
Speaker 1: two of the more interesting involved the Nintendo three DS
Speaker 1: and the Motorola Zoom tablet. With the Zoom, the pre
Speaker 1: release hype was intense and it was built as the
Speaker 1: tablet to take on the iPad too. Unfortunately, it's not
Speaker 1: lived up to those expectations, selling only about a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand copies since the launch. What's holding it back The
Speaker 1: prices a problem. It's more expensive than the iPad too,
Speaker 1: so as the lack of familiarity on the part of
Speaker 1: the buying public. It's also invisible if you try to
Speaker 1: find it in a place like Best Buy. Add to
Speaker 1: that the fact that it came out at the same
Speaker 1: time as the iPad too, and the iPad to just
Speaker 1: essentially completely overshadowed it in the marketplace. So it's starting
Speaker 1: point hasn't gone really well, and it's hard to say
Speaker 1: what will happen to it going forward. On the three
Speaker 1: DS side, there are are a surprising number of complaints
Speaker 1: about the three D screen. As you'll recall, this screen
Speaker 1: does not require three D glasses. Instead, lens is built
Speaker 1: into the screen direct two different images into your left
Speaker 1: and right eyes. To get the full three D effect,
Speaker 1: you need to be centered on the screen, and the
Speaker 1: screen needs to be the correct distance from your eyes. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the new screen causes a bad experience for some people.
Speaker 1: They get dizzy, or they get headaches, or you know,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't feel right to them as they look
Speaker 1: at it. And Nintendo is suggesting using the three D
Speaker 1: feature for only thirty minutes at a time and not
Speaker 1: letting kids under seven use it at all. The whole
Speaker 1: thing has been a little uncomfortable for the launch of
Speaker 1: this amazing new device. If you google Interesting Reading number
Speaker 1: seven twenty and seven twenty two, you can get details
Speaker 1: on these two situations we've all heard of riddling It's
Speaker 1: a drug that's supposed to help kids suffering from a
Speaker 1: d D or a d h D, essentially attention deficit disorder.
Speaker 1: Lots of college students also use it, however, because they
Speaker 1: think it improves their concentration one studying as well as
Speaker 1: improving retention. Now scientists are studying why riddle in might help.
Speaker 1: It turns out that it really does help. If you
Speaker 1: give riddle into rats, they learn things faster. It appears
Speaker 1: to do this by increasing two different kinds of dopamine.
Speaker 1: One type of dopamine affects the speed of learning and
Speaker 1: the other type effects focus. Right now, using riddle in
Speaker 1: in this way is ill advised because it's a prescription drug.
Speaker 1: But in the future the drug might be relabeled as
Speaker 1: a brain boosting drug, so it becomes much more widely available.
Speaker 1: If you google interesting Reading seven twenty one, you can
Speaker 1: get details on using riddle in in this way. Remember
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago we talked about a streaming
Speaker 1: DVD service called z Diva. They set up physical DVD
Speaker 1: players playing physical DVDs, and then they routed the video
Speaker 1: signals from these DVD players over the Internet to create
Speaker 1: a streaming service. The goal is to get around Hollywood's
Speaker 1: restrictions on movie streaming, and the Diva claim that their
Speaker 1: service is the same as a video rental store because
Speaker 1: they're using physical DVDs and physical DVD players and they're
Speaker 1: only allowing one person to watch each DVD at a time.
Speaker 1: This week, Za Diva got sued by six of the
Speaker 1: biggest studios in Hollywood, which is pretty amazing. Since the
Speaker 1: Diva launched in March and has only five employees, it'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see how this shakes out. If you
Speaker 1: google Interesting Reading number seven twenty one, you can get
Speaker 1: the details. There's a fascinating article this week that discusses
Speaker 1: seven common things that people do wrong. Take, for example, showering. Now,
Speaker 1: this seems like something that's really simple and hard to
Speaker 1: screw up, but it appears that we really are doing
Speaker 1: this wrong. Many of us take showers daily or even
Speaker 1: twice daily, with hot water, soap, and maybe even a
Speaker 1: bonge or a washcloth or a loofer or something to
Speaker 1: get the pores really clean. The problem is that showering
Speaker 1: like this damages the skin, so the article recommends fewer showers,
Speaker 1: cooler water, and safer soap without the abrasion, and we're
Speaker 1: supposed to avoid a towel and air dry ourselves instead
Speaker 1: to minimize the effect on our skin. Now, if you
Speaker 1: like that idea, you'll enjoy the articles other entries on
Speaker 1: things like pooping we're supposed to use a squatting action
Speaker 1: rather than using a toilet, breathing, sleeping, toothbrushing, childbirthing, which
Speaker 1: fortunately half of us don't really have to think about.
Speaker 1: And finally, sitting, What you're supposed to do about sitting
Speaker 1: is not sit basically, that's one recommendation. Anyway, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to get a standing desk or an exercise desk so
Speaker 1: that you can avoid the whole sedentary sitting thing. Another
Speaker 1: is a seat that lets you recline at a hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty five degree angle. If you google Interesting Reading
Speaker 1: number seven twenty, you can find this article. It really
Speaker 1: is pretty amusing to read it. Lots of people are
Speaker 1: unemployed right now, so where are the decent paying jobs.
Speaker 1: It has been well known for some time that jobs
Speaker 1: in the medical field have openings and they tend to
Speaker 1: pay well. I also did an article on the BAJA
Speaker 1: s A program this week. S a A stands for
Speaker 1: the Society of Automotive Engineers and Baja SEE is a
Speaker 1: college student program where college students build little ten horsepower
Speaker 1: Baja style cars and race them. One of the videos
Speaker 1: in that article suggests that mechanical engineers and manufacturing engineers
Speaker 1: are in demand right now. If you google brain stuff
Speaker 1: Baja s a E. You can see the details and
Speaker 1: watch that video. And then there was a piece in
Speaker 1: Interesting Reading seven twenty entitled fifteen overlooked and underappreciated blue
Speaker 1: collar jobs pay well. This is pretty interesting because the
Speaker 1: jobs are esoteric. At number one is and if you
Speaker 1: think about this, what you know what could be the
Speaker 1: number one most overlooked under appreciated blue collar job in America?
Speaker 1: It's elevator installers and repairers, with an average salary of
Speaker 1: sixty nine thousand dollars a year. That would at least
Speaker 1: be a job that's indoor. Some of these jobs are not,
Speaker 1: and that might make them less desirable to some people.
Speaker 1: The best paying job on the list is mining engineer
Speaker 1: at seventy nine thousand dollars per year. Number twelve is
Speaker 1: commercial divers at fifty eight thousand dollars per year, and
Speaker 1: so on. Google Interesting Reading number seven twenty for details
Speaker 1: on these jobs. Speaking of elevators, a hack was released
Speaker 1: this week that will supposedly let you get to your
Speaker 1: floor more quickly, especially if someone has tried the old
Speaker 1: push all the buttons for every floor gag. It will
Speaker 1: also prevent your car from stopping for other people on
Speaker 1: the way to your destination floor. Supposedly, all you have
Speaker 1: to do is hold the closed door button down and
Speaker 1: keep it down while you press your floor number, and
Speaker 1: then as the elevator starts moving, you can release those
Speaker 1: two buttons. It can't hurt to try it next time
Speaker 1: you're on an elevator. If you google interesting Reading number
Speaker 1: seven nineteen, you can get instructions for this hat. In
Speaker 1: the past, cows obviously have produced cow's milk, but now
Speaker 1: some cows, about three hundred of them, are producing human
Speaker 1: milk thanks to genetic engineering, and thanks to relax genetic
Speaker 1: engineering regulations that are in place in China, scientists have
Speaker 1: inserted human genes into cows to make this possible. The
Speaker 1: ultimate goal is to create milk from cows that's nearly
Speaker 1: identical to human milk as a way to improve the
Speaker 1: milk for infants that are bottle fed. One of the
Speaker 1: key differences in human milk is a protein called lyso zyme,
Speaker 1: which can kill bacteria. Other human proteins help boost a
Speaker 1: baby's immune system. It's not yet a perfect duplicate of
Speaker 1: human milk, but it's much closer than straight cow's milk
Speaker 1: would be. Google interesting reading number seven nineteen for details.
Speaker 1: How much data can your cell phone or smartphone collect
Speaker 1: about you? Quite a bit, it turns out, as discovered
Speaker 1: by a European politician who requested his records to find
Speaker 1: out what the cell phone company was keeping about him. Apparently,
Speaker 1: his cell phone company logged his GPS information tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of times over the course of a year or so,
Speaker 1: along with his call history. A newspaper then cross correlated
Speaker 1: that data stream with his Twitter feed and other publicly
Speaker 1: available information to basically map out his life. It's kind
Speaker 1: of shocking, really. There's a little tool you can run
Speaker 1: in the article where you can see on a map
Speaker 1: exactly where he's going and what's happening in his life
Speaker 1: at those different moments as they go by, and it
Speaker 1: shows that we are completely unanonymous if we have a
Speaker 1: phone in our pocket, whether we like it or not.
Speaker 1: This kind of data keeping will be happening more and
Speaker 1: more in the future. If you google interesting Reading number
Speaker 1: seven nineteen you can see how much information can be
Speaker 1: gathered from a smartphone. And finally, there are several news
Speaker 1: items this week on stem cells. One involved an effort
Speaker 1: to grow a human eye from stem cells. Another is
Speaker 1: an attempt to grow a full human heart from stem cells.
Speaker 1: The idea of growing replacement hearts for people is getting
Speaker 1: closer to reality, and if you can grow a heart,
Speaker 1: then it's probably likely you can also grow other organs
Speaker 1: like kidneys or livers or stomachs for that matter as well.
Speaker 1: The heart technique involves starting with a donor heart and
Speaker 1: washing away everything but the kellagians scaffolding to give the
Speaker 1: new hearted shape. Then that skeleton or the saffolding is
Speaker 1: seated with stem cells from the person who will receive
Speaker 1: the heart, which then grow to create a new heart
Speaker 1: on that scaffolding. One problem during the growth process is
Speaker 1: a blood supply. As the cells thicken, they need blood
Speaker 1: to get oxygen and nutrients, so there really needs to
Speaker 1: be a circulation system that can handle the delivery of
Speaker 1: that blood. And another problem is the nerve cells to
Speaker 1: control beating, which are fairly complex in a natural heart.
Speaker 1: But if these hurdles can be overcome, then replacement hearts
Speaker 1: could become a reality. Google Interesting Reading seven nineteen for details.
Speaker 1: That's it for this week. If you would like to
Speaker 1: learn more information about these topics, or about a hundred
Speaker 1: other topics, you can google interesting reading numbers seven twenty three,
Speaker 1: seven twenty and seven nineteen. Have a great weekend for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Doesn't how
Speaker 1: steffworks dot com and don't forget to check out the
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