Cybathlon 2020 was a recent cyborg Olympics in which people with physical disabilities competed using exoskeletons, bionic limbs, and other technology. In one race, competitors with quadriplegia wore scalp sensors that detected their brain waves and allowed them to steer vehicles on the screen. From IEEE Spectrum: Pilots controlled the
Viv Forbes Washpool Qld, Australia Wandering recently through an arcade popular with the green smoothie set, I saw a sign boasting: “Plant Based Meat”. Someone should advise those nutritional dunderheads that all real meat is plant-based. Real beef and lamb are built from live plants like grasses, lucerne and mulga,
It sounds like something from a ’50s b-grade science-fiction movie: The Claw from Outer Space! But, in fact, a very real giant claw in orbit around the Earth is being proposed by the European Space Agency. Why not? It’s 2020, after all. Unlike some rampaging alien monster of Hollywood,
This video provides one of the most erudite and informative looks at Covid-19 and the consequences of lockdowns. As AIER notes, it was remarkable this week to watch as it appeared on YouTube and was forcibly taken down only 2 hours after posting. The copy [above] is hosted on LBRY,
Ageing is the new frontier in medicine. Although it may not seem that way as we face continuing global hysteria over the Wuhan plague, medicine has largely conquered the worst maladies that have afflicted humans since time immemorial. Now, medical science is setting its sights on the big one: ageing.
A recent anthropological study both provides a fascinating insight into how one group of people lived 9000 years ago – and a depressing example of how degenerate science reporting has become. Worse, the statements from the study’s authors themselves, which make spurious and long-reaching claims based on the slimmest evidence,
Facebook’s megalomaniacal arrogance seems to know no bounds. With its notorious “fact-checkers” (so-called), Facebook is declaring itself the final arbiter of truth. Especially scientific truth. A core tenet of science is freedom of inquiry. Scientists must be free to publish and, more importantly, to discuss what others publish. As
We live in such a time as Theodore Dalrymple described in Soviet society, where the purpose of state propaganda was “not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better”. Like Soviet citizens, we are forced to assent to
We now have evidence that will enable National Party spokespeople in Parliament to expose the anti-social and cost-crippling changes that the Green Party wants to inflict on New Zealanders, and I look forward to Oral Questions in Parliament by either or both Barbara Kuriger (energy) and Stuart Smith (climate change)
Despite the fact that the Earth is naturally constantly bombarded with extra-terrestrial matter (as much as one hundred kilograms of space dust and meteorites is estimated to fall on the Earth each day), the amount of “space rocks” brought back to Earth by human endeavour is incredibly small. Less than
I’ve never been much of a Star Trek fan. I thoroughly disliked didactism in entertainment from the moment Sesame Street tried to force me to learn the alphabet in an American accent. Bugger that, bring me the afternoon cartoons and the adult amorality of Bugs Bunny and crew. So,
Usually when we read the phrase “Florida man”, it’s followed by a head-scratching, hair-raising tale of debauchery and criminality, invariably involving drugs and unspeakable acts with alligators. But Miami’s Craig Hershoff is singlehandedly proving a welcome exception to “Florida Man”, while promising to benefit millions. For people who
“Time crystals” sounds like some sort of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey Dr Who nonsense. But they just might be very real – and very useful. They won’t fire up a sonic screwdriver, but they could potentially be used in quantum computers. Normal crystals might be termed “space crystals”: that is, they repeat their
Clint Eastwood’s 1982 thriller, Firefox, is little remembered these days except as the namesake of the best web browser. The titular plot device of the movie was a super-advanced Soviet jet fighter, capable of flying at Mach 6 and controlled by thought. Which leads to an unintentionally amusing sequence
covidplanb.co.nz Sunetra Gupta, a founding signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration, wrote for the Daily Mail. Here is an edited set of excerpts. I was utterly unprepared for the onslaught of insults, personal criticism, intimidation and threats that met our proposal. The level of vitriol and hostility, not
