For everything from family to computers…
Many home invaders and kidnappers use heavy-duty zip ties to keep victims restrained. If you replace your existing shoelaces with paracord you can use the paracord to form a friction saw that will cut through the zip ties. More »
from Lifehacker
Gary Power’s failed sortie over Soviet Russia in 1960 prompted military brass to search for unmanned alternatives for performing recon over hostile territory. The D-21 drone was Lockheed’s solution—launched from a modified A-12, it spied on Red China at over 2,000 MPH. More »
from Gizmodo
From February to April, a 2-month span, 877 dead dolphins and porpoises have been found on the beaches of northern Peru. The problem? No one knows why. It could be a virus. It could be an infection. It could be seismic oil exploration. It could be air guns. It could be nothing? More »
from Gizmodo
Not getting the bandwidth you need, Heidi? Then maybe the folks at North Carolina State University can help. They’ve figured out a way to boost multi-hop networks, where data is forwarded across two or more nodes (hops) in order to reach far-flung users. Networks like this can often get bogged down by interference between neighboring nodes. But by using algorithms to automatically modulate the power of each link, the NC State scientists have managed to jump efficiency by up to 80 percent. This has the effect of not only increasing speed, but also saving juice if the systems are battery powered — like those used by the US Army, which sponsored the research. After all, just because you’re away from the throne doesn’t mean you have to be out of the game.
from Engadget
Mutated shrimp from Al Jazeera’s video report
Al Jazeera‘s report on seafood in the Gulf Coast reads like a horror story: eyeless shrimp, fish with oozing sores, clawless crabs. Unfortunately these deformities are very real and disturbingly common two years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Chemical dispersants used by BP to “clean up†the oil spill are the likely cause.
Deformities happen even in ordinary circumstances, but scientists and fishers are seeing them in unprecedented scales in Gulf marine life. For example, half the shrimp caught in a Louisiana bay lacked eye sockets, according to fishers interviewed by journalist Dahr Jamail.
“Some shrimpers are catching these out in the open Gulf [of Mexico],†[commercial fisher Tracy Kuhn] added, “They are also catching them in Alabama and Mississippi. We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don’t have their usual spikes … they look like they’ve been burned off by chemicals.
Perhaps the most troubling line in the whole article is this: “Questions raised by Al Jazeera’s investigation remain largely unanswered.†When Jamail …
from Discover Magazine
A Dickensian tale for the information age.
At the end of the day, say what you will about technology. At least, sometimes, it helps an Indian boy find his mother, after years of separation, using satellite imagery of the earth.
