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Bourdain: No Reservations FAN-atic Special" Danya Alhamrani
Congratulations to Danya Alhamrani, a Saudi-American originally from Bismarck, ND, winner of the first-ever "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations FAN-atic Special" Casting Call.
In "No Reservationss" Saudi Arabia, Anthony Bourdain went international to meet up with FAN-atic casting-call winner, Danya Alhamrani, to get a taste of the real Saudi Arabia. Get Tony's and the crew's take on Saudi Arabia in Anthony Bourdain's Blog and in The Crew's Blog.
Danya will be featured in the "FAN-atic Special," and will serve as Tony's guide (fixer) through Saudi Arabia as he and the Zero Point Zero crew film in May 2008
It was a very well presented and interesting show ..
Congratulations to Danya Alhamrani, a Saudi-American originally from Bismarck, ND, winner of the first-ever "Anthony Bourdain: No Rese... more -
The Power of Perception
Change a perception and open the door to a world of new results.
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Copycat, and they're fine with that............... Biomimicry
The wings of butterflies in the genus Morpho, resident in Central and South America, produce astonishing colors: spectacular iridescent blues, bright yellows in intricate patterns, greens and reds. The Morpho are all the more astonishing because they achieve these chromatic fireworks without any pigment at all. Their wings are made of tiny scales that reflect light in layers, creating the effects we see. While he was at MIT in 1994, then-undergraduate Mark Miles studied the butterfly, and he began to wonder if he could produce the same effect using hundreds of tiny mirrors. He soon founded a company, Iridigm Display Systems, to develop the concept. In 2004, Qualcomm bought Iridigm to use the mirror technology in its mobile devices, since the system uses half the energy of traditional screens. The technology, known as Mirasol, can be found in a few devices just now hitting the market. All because of a butterfly.
Here’s another one: The lotus plant never gets dirty. Rain water falls on it, but thanks to a series of tiny bumps on its leaves, the water runs off, carrying with it dirt particles that landed on the plant. A German company called StoCorp created Lotusan, a building coating that uses the same kind of tiny, water-shedding bumps. Buildings clad in Lotusan actually get cleaner every time it rains. Some 400,000 European buildings already wear it.
Neat, huh? OK, one more: In Australia, a company called BioPower wanted to design a new kind of wave-electricity generator. Traditional generators are harmful to sea life and not very efficient. BioPower looked to the tuna’s fin to capture horizontal wave motion and the sea fan (an invertebrate marine animal) to capture vertical wave motion, and they mimic the roots of kelp to anchor their device to the sea floor by mimicking the root system of kelp. By copying nature, they’re installing hundreds of small wave-motion generators that will hopefully bother the aquatic life a lot less.
“Nature has already done all the research and development for us,” said Dayna Baumeister to an audience on a warm June night at the San Diego Zoo. “And it’s all sustainable. There’s no waste in nature.”
Baumeister co-founded the Biomimicry Guild, a Montana-based nonprofit dedicated to helping companies find solutions to problems by copying nature. The zoo was hosting Baumeister to raise awareness of the idea of biomimicry, the notion that nature can provide answers to many of our most pressing problems, and do it in a sustainable way. The zoo is in the process of establishing a biomimicry unit, which would connect educational institutions and companies with the zoo’s vast collection of plants and animals, along with the zoos expertise. It’s early yet, but zoo chief financial officer Paula Brock sees biomimicry as both a way to help the world move toward a greener future and bring a different kind of green into the zoo’s coffers.
Brock discovered biomimicry for herself mostly because of a tactical packing error. In late 2006, she was sitting in an airport, ready to board a plane for Australia, where she would speak on budgeting to other CFOs. When the gate attendant announced a lengthy delay, she discovered she’d packed just one book, and a daunting one at that: Natural Capitalism. Written by millionaire entrepreneur Paul Hawken and environmentalist scholars Amory and Hunter Lovins, she’d brought it because she’d been looking for ways to combine the ideas of nature with the idea of financial success.
The wings of butterflies in the genus Morpho, resident in Central and South America, produce astonishing colors: spectacular iridescen... more -
(ABC prime Time excerpt) New da Vinci Code? Leonardo Last Supper Christ webbed han...
For 500 years the the left hand of Christ in the Last Supper (1495) has been in front of everyone and never called what it is "syndactyly (webbed). The video shows an interview of Leonardo da Vinci researcher Ben Sweeney and Joseph Upton MD renowned hand surgeon discussing that hand and a detailed sketch of Leonardo's own anomalous left hand.
more information at
http://www.leonardoshands.com/artman2/publish/leonardo-... For 500 years the the left hand of Christ in the Last Supper (1495) has been in front of everyone and never called what it is "syndact... more -
Keeping hands where you can see 'em alters perception, study finds
Hands on steering wheel may help keep eyes on road
Psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis, led by Richard A. Abrams, Ph.D., professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, have shown that to see objects better, you should take the matter into your own hands. Hands on steering wheel may help keep eyes on road ... more -
Do you know how fat you are? Apparently not
We are getting fatter but we think we are thinner, and the trend could have serious implications for the obesity epidemic, a study has found.
Growing obesity in the population has increased what is perceived as "normal" weight, which is leading to large numbers of people underestimating how fat they really are. As a result, more people are failing to recognise they are overweight, despite an increase in the prevalence of obesity in the population.
However, thin women who are prone to feeling they are overweight have benefited from the change. The findings show they are less likely to perceive themselves as fat than in the past.
Professor Jane Wardle, of the Health Behaviour Research Centre at University College London, said: "Recognising you are overweight is the first step to doing something about it. Those who do not see themselves as carrying excess pounds will not be motivated to act."
Are we all wearing thin-tinted glasses? What do you consider a normal size or weight?
We are getting fatter but we think we are thinner, and the trend could have serious implications for the obesity epidemic, a study has... more -
See Sounds, Hear Colors
How does violin music smell? What does the reflection of trees in a lake sound like? What color is Thursday? To most people, these questions might seem completely nonsensical, but to people with synesthesia they sound perfectly reasonable. Synesthesia is a perceptual condition in which there is an involuntary blending of one or more of the senses. The most common form is chromagraphemia, the associating of colors with numbers and letters but the sensemingling can get a lot weirder. A synesthete might see moving blobs of color when tasting foods, or taste specific flavors upon hearing certain words.
Once dismissed as a product of an overly active imagination, artistic fancy, drug use or even just craziness, synesthesia is finally being recognized as having a biological basis. PhD candidate Bryan Alvarez will show us his research on this condition and also share his life as a person living with this condition. How does violin music smell? What does the reflection of trees in a lake sound like? What color is Thursday? To most people, these que... more -
Lies, War, and Empire - Part I
Part I of a talk by Dr. Michael Parenti on "Lies, War, and Empire" given May 12, 2007 at Antioch University in Seattle.
Part II at:
http://current.com/items/89036361_lies_war_and_empire_p...
Part I of a talk by Dr. Michael Parenti on "Lies, War, and Empire" given May 12, 2007 at Antioch University in Seattle. ... more -
Can we foresee the future?
"A new study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute suggests that the human visual system is equipped with the ability to foresee the future.
Assistant Professor Mark Changizi says that it takes nearly one-tenth of a second for the brain to perceive what the eyes see.
To compensate for such neural delays, he claims, the visual system has developed the ability to generate perceptions of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. Changizi says that it is due to this quality of the visual system that when an observer actually perceives something, it is the present rather than what happened one-tenth of a second ago.
Building on his "perceiving-the-present" hypothesis, Changizi was able to systematically organize and explain more than 50 types of visual illusions that occur because the brain is trying to perceive the near future." "A new study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute suggests that the human visual system is equipped with the ability to foresee the f... more -
Beauty & Truth
Murray Gell-Mann drops some knowledge about particle physics, asking questions like, Are elegant equations more likely to be right than inelegant ones?
Watch him peel away the entire onion Murray Gell-Mann drops some knowledge about particle physics, asking questions like, Are elegant equations more likely to be right tha... more -
Does the car a CEO drives say alot about the CEO and his Co.???
Cars often are big attention grabbers. That's especially true when it comes to what the CEO drives.
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Liquid Perception
Antonio is 30 years-old and hes a serial killer. As a child he suffered the angst of seeing his mother being physically and psychologically assaulted by his father. After his mothers suicide he suffers a mental collapse and transposes his life to the other side of the mirror. Searching to release himself from his interior anger he begins to torture people that suffer from the same he did.
Antonio is 30 years-old and hes a serial killer. As a child he suffered the angst of seeing his mother being physically and psycholog... more -
Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices
The McGurk effect plays with how we perceive sound and the way it interacts with our brains.
It highlights to us the idea that how we pick up sound is more than a single modal experience.
The effect is applied when you see the mouthings of one word but you hear another similar sounding one. The result is a new word based upon both the sound and the image of the two similar words being spoken.
Later research into the subject has proved that the effect is applicable to whole sentences as well.
It lends it's name from Harry McGurk whom put it on paper in 1976.
Follow the link.
Watch the video through a couple of times.
Then listen DON'T watch.
Notice anything different?
The McGurk effect plays with how we perceive sound and the way it interacts with our brains. ... more -
Stop the clash of civilizations
Talk is rising of a 'clash of civilizations'. But the problem isnt culture, it's politics from 9/11 to Guantanamo, Iraq to Iran. This clash is not inevitable, and we don't want it.
So where to start? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the key symbol of the rift between Islam & the West. It's time to step up and take the initiative.
Talk is rising of a 'clash of civilizations'. But the problem isnt culture, it's politics from 9/11 to Guantanamo, Iraq to Iran. Th... more
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Perception
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Perception
