Evil Ex-Girlfriend Destroys Game Collection

Lets all bow our heads and controllers for a moment of silence to mourn these fallen games.

Redditor "NoMoreGFs4Me" (cute handle) posted some horrible images of his gaming collection. He says he came home after "breaking up" with his girlfriend to find that she had thrown all his games together in a cheap cardboard box and HAMMERED them to death; it's like a horror movie except without the playful nudity.

This just proves that if you are a gamer do not get a girlfriend/boyfriend who doesn't game. True veterans of the video game world know how to respect their media and could cringe at these pictures.

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Biologists Create "Zombie Cells" in Lab

Let's be honest; we know the Zombie Apocalypse will never happen. But that doesn't stop us from defacating in our cargos everytime the CDC releases a warning or some random pedestrians chew a man's face off and continues gnawing while being shot.

"A team at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico have innovated a technique whereby mammalian cells are coated with silica to form a near-perfect replicas.

The silica replicants can survive greater pressures and temperatures than flesh, and perform many functions better than the original cells did when alive.

By painting the cells with silicic acid in a petri dish, the acid embalms the organic matter in the cell down to the nanometer level.

Heating the silica to around 400C evaporates the protein in the cell, but leaves the silica as a three-dimensional replica of the "formerly living being.

Our zombie cells bridge chemistry and biology to create forms that not only near-perfectly resemble their past selves, but can do future work."

Im going to go sharpen a broom handle and barricade my doors, you can read the full story HERE.

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NASA's Consolidated Launch Schedule

NASA's Consolidated Launch Schedule

NASA's Launch Schedule features the planned dates and details for missions by NASA and the partner nations in the International Space Station Program, including Russia, European Space Agency and Japan.

[Updated - Feb. 11, 2013 at 4:30 p.m. EST]
NASA's Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), lifted off aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 1:02 p.m. EST on Feb. 11 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

2013 Launches

Date: February 12
Launch Vehicle: ISS Progress 50
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description: Progress 50 will carry supplies, hardware, fuel and water to the International Space Station.

Date: March
Mission: Orbital Sciences Corporation Test Flight
Launch Vehicle: Antares
Launch Site: Wallops Flight Facilityy, Va.
Launch Pad: 0A
Description: The Antares is scheduled for a test flight under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services agreement with the company.

Date: March 1
Mission: SpaceX CRS-2 Commercial Resupply Services flight
Launch Vehicle: Falcon 9
Launch Window: 10:10 a.m. EST
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 40
Description: SpaceX CRS-2 will be the second commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).

Date: March 28
Assembly Flight: 34S
Mission: Expedition 35/36
Launch Vehicle: Soyuz TMA-08M
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description: Soyuz TMA-08M will carry three Expedition 35/36 crew members to the International Space Station.

Date: April 18
Mission: ISS Automated Transfer Vehicle 4
Launch Vehicle: Ariane 5
Launch Site: Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana
Launch Pad: ELA-3
Description: The European Space Agency’s ATV-4, also known as the “Albert Einstein,” will deliver several tons of supplies to the International Space Station. It will dock with the Zvezda Service Module, part of the Russian segment of the station.

Date: April 24
Launch Vehicle: ISS Progress 51
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description: Progress 51 will carry supplies, hardware, fuel and water to the International Space Station.

Date: No Earlier Than April 28
Mission: Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS)
Launch Window: 7:29:57 p.m. to 7:34:57 p.m. PDT
Launch Vehicle: Pegasus XL
Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
Description: IRIS is designed to provide significant new information to increase our understanding of energy transport into the corona and solar wind and provide an archetype for all stellar atmospheres.

Date: May 3
Mission: Orbital Sciences Corporation Test Flight
Launch Vehicle: Antares/Cygnus
Launch Site: Wallops Flight Facility, Va.
Launch Pad: 0A
Description: The Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled for a demonstration flight on an Orbital Antares launch vehicle under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services agreement with the company. Cygnus will make an attempt to rendezvous and berth with the International Space Station.

Date: May 28
Assembly Flight: 35S
Mission: Expedition 36/37
Launch Vehicle: Soyuz TMA-09M
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description:Soyuz TMA-09M will carry three Expedition 36/37 crew members to the International Space Station.

Date: July 24
Launch Vehicle: ISS Progress 52
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description: Progress 52 will carry supplies, hardware, fuel and water to the International Space Station.

Date: August 12
Mission: Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE)
Launch Vehicle: Minotaur V
Launch Site: Wallops Flight Facility, Va.
Launch Pad: Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0B
Description: LADEE will gather detailed information about conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust. A thorough understanding of these influences will help researchers understand how future exploration may shape the lunar environment and how the environment may affect future explorers.

Date: September 25
Assembly Flight: 36S
Mission: Expedition 37/38
Launch Vehicle: Soyuz TMA-10M
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description: Soyuz TMA-10M will carry three Expedition 37/38 crew members to the International Space Station.

Date: September 30
Mission: SpaceX-3 Commercial Resupply Services flight
Launch Vehicle: Falcon 9
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 40
Description: SpaceX-3 will be the third commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).

Date: October 16
Launch Vehicle: ISS Progress 53
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description: Progress 53 will carry supplies, hardware, fuel and water to the International Space Station.

Date: November 18
Mission: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN)
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 41
Description: MAVEN will be the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. The mission's goal is to determine the role that loss of atmospheric gas to space played in changing the Martian climate through time.

Date: November 25
Assembly Flight: 37S
Mission: Expedition 38/39
Launch Vehicle: Soyuz TMA-11M
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description: Soyuz TMA-11M will carry three Expedition 38/39 crew members to the International Space Station.

Date: December 11
Assembly Flight: 3R
Mission: Multipurpose Laboratory Module with European Robotic Arm (ERA)
Launch Vehicle: Russian Proton
Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Description: A Russian Proton rocket will deliver the Multipurpose Laboratory Module with European Robotic Arm (ERA) to the International Space Station.

NASA

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Mars: War Logs Screenshots

Mars: War Logs is an action RPG that takes you to the red planet over a century after the catastrophe that threw the planet and its colonists into chaos.

This game has been easy to misplace so in case you missed the announcement, here’s a quick plot overview:

“Over a century after the catastrophe that shook Mars and threw its colonists into chaos, power is now shared between the different companies distributing the arid planet’s most precious asset: water. The conservative and somewhat archaic Abundance thus struggles to maintain its influence in the face of Aurora, a young guild whose power stems from their plethora of Technomancers, people capable of focusing their energy in Terran artefacts to create devastating “magical” effects.”

Thanks AGB

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Squids Can Now Fly; Confirmed by Marine Biologists

In what sounds like a nightmarish tale mixing Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds" and Hentai horror. Marine biologists have discovered, stood back in shock and awe, and have now confirmed that squids can fly. That's not a typo; the cephalapods can emerge out of the ocean and fly to lengths of 98 feet!

According to the researchers, the squid is able to accomplish this by shooting a powerful jet of water out from their funnel-like stems. Once they're out of the water, they glide by spreading out their fins and arms. This configuration creates aerodynamic lift, enabling the squid to keep a stable arc on its flight. Consequently, the researchers say the squid is truly flying, and not just jumping. And indeed, the technique allows the squid to remain airborne for as much as three seconds at a time.

We're watching evolution happen before our eyes. Amazing.

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Emergency Alert System Hacked: The Dead Walking

Some residents in several Montana counties were shocked today when a local TV station KRTV had a very interesting alert that the zombie apocalypse had finally happened. As it turns out a person or group had hacked into the Emergency Broadcast System and aired on live TV the following message. 
“Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living, “Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered very dangerous.”

The Great Falls Tribune says that local police received at least four calls to see if the claims were in fact true. KRTV issued a Response clearly stating that the alert was bogus and "This message did not originate from KRTV, and there is no emergency. Our engineers are investigating to determine what happened and if it affected other media outlets."

Although illegal, this is one of the most successful mass trollings in recent memory. Thankfully we avoided a zombie apocalypse for the time being. 

See what was broadcast earlier below.





Roger Havens- Tech Fixation Editor.
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All The Best Super Bowl Commercials of 2013

by Dexter Jaekel


Please Enjoy my favourite Super Bowl 2013 Commercials


Mercedes-Benz Extended Commercial


Samsung Mock Ad


Taco Bell Ad


Doritos Goat 4 Sale


M&M Love Ballad


Doritos Fashionista Dad


Hyundai Santa Fe


Oreo Whisper Fight


Kia Forte HotBots


Audi


Iron Man 3 Extended Look


Coke Ad


Pepsi Ad


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Scientists Have Printed 3D Embryotic Stem Cells

Breaking new grounds for the first time, scientists have produced human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) using 3D printing. They're utterly amazing, and they could be used to reproduce kidneys, hearts, and other organs in the future. We are at the cusp of future medical research and practical application!

A team at Heriot-Way University in Scotland used stem cells as ink for the 3D printer, and using a valve, pushed out living cells into droplets of new cells in uniform sizes. The researchers would adjust the nozzle on the printer to control the very diameter and dimensions of the cells. And what's even more mesmerizing is that these organisms were capable of differentiation, meaning they can form into various types of tissues. Other attempts at this replication have not worked as well because they've produced unstable results. However, 99 percent of the cells that came out of the printer were still usable.

So why is this important? hESCs are like blank slates, meaning they can be used to create any type of tissue. Think lung transplants, liver transplants, skin grafts, and so forth. Or 3D printed cells could be planted into existing organs to help regenerate parts that have been damaged. And furthermore, it would mean a limit on animal testing. Because rather than testing on these live critters, scientists could use real, 3D printed organs for drug trials.

You can go ahead and pick your jaw up off your desk now; it's amazing and no so simply put.

For the full and detailed article visit PopSci

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OFFICIAL: Ziff Davis Buys IGN

Talk about acting fast; on episode 70 of the TechFixation podcast Dexter and I talked about the future of the gaming industry with the rumour that IGN was for sale. Turns out the rumours were correct.

For entertainment purposes we suggest you listen to Episode 70

Ziff Davis has confirmed its acquisition of the IGN network, bringing the massive games-media outlet under the umbrella of parent company J2 Global. The network will join several other brands at Ziff Davis which are aimed at a similar, lucrative demographic, centred around males aged 18-34.

"This is a transformative deal for our digital media business," said J2 Global CEO Hemi Zucker. "By combining two of the most storied organizations in tech, gaming and entertainment, we have created a very powerful company capable of producing and delivering content in all forms to an audience that marketers highly value."

There is no confirmation on the price tag however. The initial rumour suggested that IGN, once purchased for $650 million, was being auctioned for $100 million.

-Daniel, Jedi Editor
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Custom Made Lightsabres

Be advised: Although Phillip Isherwood's custom crafted lightsabers blaze LED spectral force fields of green, red, or blue and arrive with 36" long polycarbonate blades designed for full speed, full contact dueling, he wants to be clear that they are not based on the weapons used in  George Lucas' interstellar film series, Star Wars. These ornate and beautifully crafted sabres are stunning and unique.

Available in 13 different designs ranging in price from $129 to $499 (based on makeup and capabilities) Isherwood's lightsabers are all forged from aircraft grade aluminum and fitted with genuine cow hide leather grips. The battle sabers have anti vandal switches recessed into their handles to preclude accidental shutoffs during blade-to-blade action, and can withstand intense flailing and impact.

Some lightsabers also include sound effects, courtesy of a Novasound Neutrino soundboard. The Neutrino ranks as a high end, hero level sound effects device with 20 clash and swoosh effects, ignition and deactivation notifications, and an idle hum. It also has an adjustable blade light pulse setting, and a voice menu for ease of changing any of the settings with the saber's button. Isherwood notes the Neutrino is the loudest soundboard currently available.

Fully-loaded models are powered by internal battery packs, fitted with a kill key, recharge port, and accompanying universal charger.


To Buy Click HERE

-Daniel, Jedi Editor

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Twitter "Sophistacatedly" Hacked

Twitter has reported that it had been hit by a "sophisticated" cyber attack similar to those that recently hit major Western news outlets, and that the passwords of about 250,000 users were stolen.

"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident," Twitter information security director Bob Lord said in a blog post.

Lord referred to an "uptick in large-scale security attacks aimed at US technology and media companies" as he told of Twitter detecting attempts this week to get unauthorized access to data in the firm's network.

The attack coincided with the revelation of several high-profile security breaches. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal said this week that they had been hacked, and pointed to hackers from China.

Twitter did not confirm the source of the intrusion.

But Lord noted that "the attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked."

He said that Twitter shut down a live attack as it was in progress.

However, Lord added, cyber attackers may have gotten usernames, email addresses, passwords and other data.

As a precaution, Twitter invalidated passwords of accounts at issue and sent people email messages telling them to create new passwords.

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Scientists Create a Working Tractor Beam

Sci-Fi fans have another reason to rejoice in our constant advancement in technology. Two NYU professors wrote a technique to develop the first working 'tractor beam.' The technique supposedly harnesses a form of light beam called "Bessel beams" to attract matter towards the source of light, according to the research paper entitled "Optical Conveyors: A Class of Active Tractor Beams."

Scientists David Ruffner and David Grier explain in their paper how the technique can pull silica spheres toward a laser source. Granted, these spheres are about 30 micrometers in size, and they need to be suspended in water in order for the process to work, but this small-scale version is the first step toward taking an enemy ship hostage in your cargo bay.

True geeks can read the NYU research paper here.

- Caleb Smith
Tech Editor


Image: Gizmodo

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How Much Would It Cost to Live on Mars

Mars has always loomed large in humankind's collective imagination. Now with PayPal's Elon Musk showing interest in the Red Planet, we take a look at just how much it would cost to set up home there.

From Earth's surface to our inner atmosphere is 160km (99miles).
From Earth's surfaceto out outer atmosphere is 2000km (1200miles).
The distance between Earth and Mars is 402 million km (250 million miles).

To put ONE pound into space it would cost:
Curiosity Rover- $900,000 per lb.
Total weight- 1982 lbs at $1.8 billion.

NASA's space shuttle- $10,000 per lb.
Elon Musk Spacex's Falcon 9 Rocket- $3,000 per lb.

Cost of Travel

Here are a few estimates from leading space agencies and companies:

NASA- $100 billion
SpaceX- $36 billion
The Mars Society- $30 billion

Even the cheapest of these could buy you 2.5 million "Round the World" cruises.

Shelter

The important thing about living on Mars is that we need to be "sheltered" all the way. We're fragile creature. The majority of the hypothetical manned Mars missions would use the lander they travelled in as a home with sections that would inflate upon landing for additional room.

The inclusive cost of an inflatable Martian home with a 120km(cubed) living area would be:
NASA- $267 million
SpaceX- $150 million

Sustenance

Per day an adult needs 1 US Gallon (3.7 litres) of H2O and between 1200 and 1500 kilocalories (basically two cans of food). The cost of transporting & storing ONE years food supply for ONE individual to Mars:
NASA- $42 million
SpaceX- $13 million

Agriculture

On Mars there is a possibility to grow your own food and collect your own water. Water is present in the ground and atmosphere on Mars. There are large ice deposits upon its surface as well.

The cost of transporting and initiating automated machinery that could provide fooda d water for ONE individual:
NASA- $15.4 million
SpaceX-$4.6 million

With intensive cultivation methods a 4700m(squared)(1.6 acre) can provide enough food for an individual. The cost of transporting the tools, plants, and shelter required to create a self sufficient agriculture for ONE individual would be:
NASA- $20.9 billion
SpaceX - $11.75 billion

The bonus for having agriculture is that plants create oxygen thus removing the need for additional oxygen transport or collection.

A person needs 8m(squared) of Chlorella Algae to maintain a balanced CO2/O2 level, which is the equivelant to around 400 household plants.

Entertainment

Unfortunately, there are no private telecom providers on Mars. So until then you'll be using NASA's 2011 Mars Odyssey to semd your data.
A standard text message (on Earth) costs $0.05 for 140 bytes of info. That's $383,300 per gigabyte.
The Mars global surveyor was a comparable satellite to the Odyssey able to send data back to Earth for $284,000 per gigabyte.
$0.04 per text = 20% cheaper than on Earth.
The cost of a ONE minute phone call- $209.71
The cost of a 75kb email- $209.71
The cost of watching PSY's Gangnam Style on YouTube in HD 1080p- $37,244.

Total Cost

So, to travel to Mars on your own private rocket, live there on 1.6 acres of land, and have enough food, water, and entertainment to survive comes to (roughly):
NASA- $121 billion
SpaceX- $48 billion

This may seem like a lot of money (and it is), but if the U.S. was to spend all of its $711 BILLION Defence Budget on getting us to Mars it could send 15 people to Mars on their own private rocket, and when they get there they could each have their own acre of land to live on.

Elon Musk's declaration of having 80,000 people living on Mars within two decades could be achievable if people traveled together and shared living conditions.


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Star Wars: Ep VII Filming Location

The Daily Mail is reporting that a location in Kent, England will be used in battle scenes in the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII. The location is an abandoned quarry outside the Bluewater Shopping Centre that has previously been seen in British TV series including Doctor Who.

With the recent announcement that JJ Abrams will be directing the film, it can be assumed that production has moved past the writing stages and onto the logistics of filming and casting.

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Steve Wozniak Weighs in on JOBS

For as long as there have been film adaptations of historical events, there have always been nay-sayers who have something to complain about. Most of the time, these critiques can be written off as artistically-challenged rants about tedious details. However, there are instances when the critic is a very dependable resource, and their input can make or break a movie.

Just this week, a clip for the new film 'JOBS,' starring Ashton Kutcher as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, premiered online to mixed reviews. While some still can't seem to get over the fact that Ashton Kutcher is playing as Jobs, the clip yeilded a much more serious reaction from one of the "characters" portrayed in the film. Co-founder Steve Wozniak decided to chime in about the clip, and was quick to point out that the initial footage of the film is completely incorrect.

"We never had such interaction and roles... I'm not even sure what it's getting at... [The] personalities are very wrong although mine is closer," the Woz weighs in.

Here's the infamous clip:

According to Wozniak, the scene is "totally wrong. Personalities and where the ideas of computer affecting society did not come from Jobs. They inspired me and were widely spoken at the Homebrew Computer Club. Steve came back from Oregon and came to a club meeting and didn't start talking about this great social impact. His idea was to make a $20 PC board and sell it for $40 to help people at the club build the computer I'd given away. Steve came from selling surplus parts at HalTed, he alwas saw a way to make a quick buck off my designs."

While the Woz thought his character's portrayal was somewhat accurate, he added "I never looked like a professional. We were both kids. Our relationship was so different than what was portrayed. I'm embarrassed, but if the movie is fun and entertaining, all the better. Anyone who reads my book, 'iWoz,' can get a clearer picture."

There are always critics, but Wozniak's review can seriously hurt JOBS' sales if the rest of the movie keeps the same theme. We will see more of what this film has to offer in the weeks preceding its April 19 release. What are your thoughts on the clip?

-by Caleb Smith

Image from Screenrant.com


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J.J. Abrams Will Direct Star Wars Episode VII

J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars: Episode VII for Walt Disney Pictures and Lucasfilm, reports TheWrap. The site says that Ben Affleck was also in contention.

Ben Affleck? Seriously?

Back in November, Abrams commented on the possibility of him directing and it sounded like it wasn't happening:

"Look, Star Wars is one of my favorite movies of all time. I frankly feel that – I almost feel that, in a weird way, the opportunity for whomever it is to direct that movie, it comes with the burden of being that kind of iconic movie and series. I was never a big Star Trek fan growing up, so for me, working on Star Trek didn’t have any of that, you know, almost fatal sacrilege, and so, I am looking forward more then anyone to the next iterations of Star Wars, but I believe I will be going as a paying moviegoer!"

Star Wars: Episode VII is scheduled to hit theaters in 2015. Michael Arndt is writing the script. No actors have been confirmed for roles yet and no plot has been revealed.

-Daniel, Jedi Editor
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A Boondock Saint is Cast in Dexter Season 8

Personally, Dexter is one of my favorite shows and this eighth season is being called the last; although that hasn't been confirmed true or false.

Two new characters have been cast in roles that have been up for grabs for a week. Charlotte Rampling will play "a neuro-psychiatrist who specializes in working with young psychopaths and profiling criminals in unorthodox ways. There is rumour the role has a significant impact on next season’s story.

The other casting choice sounds so good it's too good to be true. Sean Patrick Flanery the Boondock Saint himself is cast as "Jacob Elroy," a private investigator.

Fans of the show, like me, can assume the psychiatrist is for Deb after what happened in the finale of season seven, and the private investigator is hired by either Batista or Matthews to find out what happened to Laquerta.

Dexter season 8 kicks off on Showtime June 30th!

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Scientists have Stored Media Files ONTO DNA

Imagine a future where the amount of data on the Web could be saved to a thumb drive. A storage medium already exists that can hold this amount of information. It's call DNA.

DNA typically stores biological information in cells that direct structures like proteins do their jobs. But scientists are investigating ways to get DNA to store other kinds of information. This week Harvard researchers reported in the journal Science that they encoded an entire book into DNA. Not only that, they read back the text.

The experiment hints towards future data-storage devices with capacities that eclipse the computer chips and hard drives used today.

"A device the size of your thumb could store as much information as the whole Internet," Harvard University molecular geneticist George Church, the project's senior researcher, told the Wall Street Journal.

Though I was hoping for a more literary selection, the team's DNA translation was Church's text on genomic engineering, "Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves." On second thought, that does sound like it has literary potential.

How'd they do it? Well, it all boils down to letters and numbers.

If you remember back to your middle school biology class, DNA is composed of two coiled strands consisting of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T).

Using the zeros-and-ones of computer language, the Harvard team began with the digital version of the book. On paper, they translated the zeros into the A or C of the DNA base pair. Likewise, they translated the ones into the G or T.

Then they created actual DNA — nearly 55,000 short strands that all included the new coded sequence that contained portions of the text.

In this viscous-liquid or solid-salt form, researchers said that a billion copies of the book could easily fit into a test tube and that they could last for centuries, provided with the right conditions.

"It shows that the vast increase in capacity to synthesize and sequence DNA can be applied to store significant amounts of data," said synthetic biologist Drew Endy at Stanford University, who wasn't involved in the project. "If you wanted to have your library encoded in DNA, you could probably do that now."

On another note, the human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space in an iPod or a USB flash drive. Yet neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage.

A single sperm hold 37.5MB of data in its DNA. That means that a normal ejaculation is represents a data transfer of 1,587.5TB of data.

Amazing.

-Daniel, Jedi Editor
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Instagram Has More Than 90 Million Users

Instagram, the hugely popular photo sharing site, has announced that it's surpassed 90 million users.

It also said 40 million pictures are added to the site on a daily basis, as well as receiving 8,500 likes and 1,000 comments per second. Co-founder Kevin Systrom stressed that Instagram continues to showcase strong growth around the globe.

"Instagram continues to see very strong growth around the world," he said. "With many of the product and internationalization improvements we’ve made, we’ve been excited to see these efforts resonate with users globally."

Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion, faced widespread backlash after it said it would sell users' photos. It then amended its terms of service to revert the policy, but was still affected by a class action lawsuit.

Plug: follow my instagram @darthurra

-Daniel, Jedi Editor
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Single Molecule Pictured for the First Time

It may look like a piece of honeycomb, but this lattice-shaped image is the first ever close-up view of a single molecule. Scientists from IBM used an atomic force microscope (AFM) to reveal the chemical bonds within a molecule.
'This is the first time that all the atoms in a molecule have been imaged," lead researcher Leo Gross said.

The researchers focused on a single molecule of pentacene, which is commonly used in solar cells. The rectangular-shaped organic molecule is made up of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms.
In the image above the hexagonal shapes of the five carbon rings are clear and even the positions of the hydrogen atoms around the carbon rings can be seen. To give some perspective, the space between the carbon rings is only 0.14 nanometers across, which is roughly one million times smaller than the diameter of a grain of sand.

"If you think about how a doctor uses an X-ray to image bones and organs inside the human body, we are using the atomic force microscope to image the atomic structures that are the backbones of individual molecules," said IBM researcher Gerhard Meyer.

The AFM uses a sharp metal tip that acts like a tuning fork to measure the tiny forces between the tip and the molecule. This requires great precision as the tip moves within a nanometer of the sample. The team from IBM Research Zurich said the results could have a huge impact of the field of nanotechnology, which seeks to understand and control some of the smallest objects known to mankind.

"Above the skeleton of the molecular backbone (of the pentacene) you get a different detuning than above the surface the molecule is lying on," Mr Gross said.

This detuning is then measured and converted into an image. To stop the tip from absorbing the pentacene molecule, the researchers replaced the metal with a single molecule of carbon monoxide. This was found to be more stable and created weaker electrostatic attractions with the pentacene, creating a higher resolution image.

Found this surfing around. It's from 2009, but I'm sure a lot of people didn't get to hear about it.

-Daniel, Jedi Editor
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