Archive for August, 2017
Bill Gates and Richard Branson Back Startup That Grows ‘Clean Meat’
August 23rd, 2017haha oh sure! Via: Bloomberg: Cargill Inc., one of the largest global agricultural companies, has joined Bill Gates and other business giants to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells amid rising consumer demand for protein that’s less reliant on feed, land and water. Memphis Meats, which produces beef, chicken […]
A Glut Has Used-Car Depreciation Accelerating
August 22nd, 2017Via: Bloomberg: Car sales in the U.S. have been rising for seven consecutive years now, and it’s denting the value of whatever is currently parked in your garage or driveway. With so many new cars rolling out of dealerships lots and instantly becoming used cars, the secondary market is glutted and the pace of depreciation […]
Magneto-Thermal Genetic Deep Brain Stimulation of Motor Behaviors in Awake, Freely Moving Mice
August 21st, 2017Via: eLIFE: Establishing how neurocircuit activation causes particular behaviors requires modulating the activity of specific neurons. Here, we demonstrate that magnetothermal genetic stimulation provides tetherless deep brain activation sufficient to evoke motor behavior in awake mice. The approach uses alternating magnetic fields to heat superparamagnetic nanoparticles on the neuronal membrane. Neurons heat-sensitized by expressing TRPV1 […]
Killer Robots: Experts Warn of ‘Third Revolution in Warfare’
August 21st, 2017I was warning about this 15 years ago. Nowadays, I’m more into yawning and wondering why the mushroom clouds haven’t gone up yet. Via: BBC: More than 100 leading robotics experts are urging the United Nations to take action in order to prevent the development of “killer robots”. In a letter to the organisation, artificial […]
Journalist Who Helped Expose Jimmy Savile Dies After Stroke
August 21st, 2017Via: BBC: Ex-BBC News correspondent Liz MacKean has died after suffering a stroke. MacKean, 52, worked for the corporation for more than 20 years but left in 2013 amid a row over the decision to shelve her investigation for Newsnight about disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile. She began her career at BBC Hereford and Worcester, before […]
Eclipse
August 21st, 2017I think the past few days have been the lightest posting period in fifteen years of running Cryptogon. People are wondering if I’m still alive. By the time I’ve read through 10 million headlines about Trump, the statues and the sign wavers, it starts to seem like not much is happening. I think that I […]
CIA ‘Torture Psychologists’ Avoid Trial with Secret Settlement
August 18th, 2017Via: AFP: Two psychologists who helped design the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation program settled a lawsuit Thursday by detainees alleging they were illegally tortured. The secret settlement in the suit, brought on behalf of two living ex-detainees and one who died of hypothermia after brutal questioning in US custody, avoided what would have been the first […]
Call from Tesla
August 17th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — I had a call from a Tesla energy specialist yesterday. She confirmed what we learned a few days ago about the Powerwall 2’s ability to island grid tied inverters for backup purposes. She also said that Powerwall 2 demand is, “Extreme,” and far in excess […]
Fleas Found to Carry the Plague in at Least 2 Arizona Counties
August 13th, 2017Really? In other news: Imagine the coincidence… A plague expert, with links to the DoD bioweapons milieu, is involved with a weird murder along with a foreign national, who happens to be from the same country where this happened several years ago: Britain: Scientists Reconstruct Black Death Plague with Genetic Material Taken from Ancient Corpses […]
Confirmed: Grid Tie Inverter Continues to Generate Electricity During Grid Failure with Powerwall 2
August 13th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Man, I’ve been waiting a long time to see this confirmed. Here it is! Tesla remains silent on generator backup options, but I have no doubt that people are going to start rolling their own if Tesla doesn’t address it. In any event, very special […]
