News You Can't Use: Tiny Implant Could Connect Humans and Machines Like Never Before

If I have one complaint about the golden age I was blessed to be born into, and I really have to stress that "if," it's that there just isn't enough technology in our lives and the interfaces are too demanding. Poking at a tablet like a cat scratching at a closed door in order to deploy ball-shaped avians with anger management issues just isn't getting it. We clearly need some of those brain implants and fortunately it's on the way if our society manages to stave off the steady transformation into a burning heap for another decade or so. Think of the ability to quickly interact with devices. I know, might be cold shower time just to calm down a bit.

A tiny implant the size of a grain of sand has been created that can connect computers to the human body without the need for wires or batteries, opening up a host of futuristic possibilities.

You could copy and paste with just a thought. That financial program that comes packed in with every computer and no one actually uses could be deleted with the blink of an eyes. And don't forget Google Government beaming the Right Think directly into the cortex! The words "What could possibly go wrong?" have never been more appropriate.

The devices, dubbed "neural dust", could be used to continually monitor organs like the heart in real time and, if they can be made even smaller, implanted into the brain to control robotic devices like prosthetic arms or legs.

Hopefully this "dust" won't result in you attempting to fly off the roof of your high school after a massive freak-out. And hey, what could be more awesome than constantly getting feedback on your heartbeat? Yup, still going. Glub. Glub. Glub. This is great.

It is believed they could help treat conditions like epilepsy by stimulating nerves and muscles, help people with incontinence control their bladder and even suppress appetite.  

Here, put this dust in your frontal lobes so you slim down a little, Carb-face.

They could also potentially either be used to prompt the immune system into action or reduce inflammation.

Muhh murricall snake oil also heals up dat AIDS, yes suh.

One of the inventors, Professor Michel Maharbiz, of University of California, Berkeley, said: “I think the long-term prospects for neural dust are not only within nerves and the brain, but much broader.

You could manually activate processes that are normally automatic!

“Having access to in-body telemetry has never been possible because there has been no way to put something super-tiny super-deep [in the body]. 

If you're super tiny you're not gonna go super deep in that thang. I'm just sayin'.

Ultrasound vibrations, which can penetrate almost every part of the body, are used to power the sensors, which are about a millimetre across.

This "massager" is used to activate sensors and not for that other use, honest.

This can already be done using brain implants, but these require wires that go through a hole in the skull, potentially allowing in infection or movement of the sensor within the brain. They must also be replaced after about one to two years.

Been fourteen months, better get the old head-wires replaced.

The researchers are currently building neural dust that could last in the body for more than 10 years. And because they are wireless there is no need for holes to remain in the skull.

Well, other than for aerodynamics, obviously.

“The beauty is that now, the sensors are small enough to have a good application in the peripheral nervous system, for bladder control or appetite suppression, for example.”

Not pissing yourself or doing that All-American bloat are literally the best ideas we have for this horrific "We tampered in God's domain" nightmare technology.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

Which Way Books #15: Star Trek Voyage to Adventure

Dying a soccer-related death was such a bring-down that a long time has passed since this most noble of projects has seen a new entry, but here we are. The good news is two things I love, original Star Trek and interactive fiction from the Reagan administration have made sweet love and produced a 118 page bundle of love. Unfortunately, in fine monkey's paw fashion this long-held wish has been twisted and corrupted. It's a Which Way book, noted for its "Report due Monday, started at eleven Sunday night" quality and a prose style that could most charitably be called unadorned. Nevertheless, this series was an undeniable powerhouse within the genre, as witnessed by scoring this amazing crossover. Let's put on our space girdle, split some infinitives and set the phasers on "fun."

Sorry McCoy, you didn't make the cut. Green monster guy, you're in.

The limitations of writing a story within an existing setting and established mythology immediately become clear, as we get a highly disappointing introduction. Usually the set-up is one of the few bright spots this series provides, such as bad television reception provoking get-even against a castle or intelligent slime taking over a small town in fly-over country. Suffice it to say, we get none of that delightful madness here. Instead I'm a recent graduate of Starfleet Academy, packing my "space bag." Yes, space bag. They really went all out on establishing this setting. 

Before being assigned to the Enterprise I get to listen to a speech by an Admiral outlining the best practices for boldly going. We're supposed to promote peace, obey the prime directive and in general follow all those rules the series ignored in favor of big right hands, judo throws and destroying entire cultures via speeches delivered with stilted bombast. None of that for me, though, I'm going to obey all the rules. After all this thrilling packing and listening I get to choose my assignment by picking it off a board. Apparently going where no man has gone before is a lot like being a Freshman at a state school.

Set riot shotguns to "ruin."

I select science, because I fudging love science. By that I mean neat pictures and pretending to be superior to others, not yucky equations or trying to figure out the mystery of magnets or something. Spock is busy with a computer that is totally different from any I've ever seen. Maybe an extra disk drive or something, who knows. It turns out the Vulcan is messing with the space time continuum, because that generally goes well. Naturally, things start going wrong almost immediately, with crystals shattering and my new boss getting caught in a "time field." Technically speaking, I think we're all caught in one of those. I obey his instructions not to do anything. Man, easiest job ever.

Yeah, don't even ask.

Spock promptly vanishes and I'm stuck holding the bag so to speak. I don't think "it was like that when I got here" will be enough of an explanation for this. Instead I try to make sense of some notes, but they're in "Vulcan shorthand" and as such indecipherable. All that remains is to pull a lever, because if there's one thing I know for sure it's all the complexities of Wheelchair Man psychics can be distilled down to random lever pulling. 

I yank it back, earning a strong wind and a rush of colors. The clock on the wall is running backward. Huh, seems like I've figured out this incredibly complex mystery device. Spock returns, turns the machine off and is all "Thanks, Bro" and promises to be more careful in the future. The End.  

 See, I'm being very careful.

I can't really call it a disappointment, since I knew pretty much what I was going to get. All the Which Way tropes are here: Three stories to select from, just enough description to get the job done, binary choices that amount to coin tosses and abrupt and unsatisfying endings. On the other hand, Star Trek. Beam me outta here.

Alternate cover looks like a bad photoshop.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

The Five Minute Rejection and Other Tales of Success

I’m a bit of a mess. A quick survey of the Fortress of Righteousness where my writings are painfully birthed is all that’s necessary to confirm the veracity of that statement. There’s teetering stacks of badly dog-eared books, scattered bottles labeled with double-headed eagles, crumpled papers scrawled with nearly illegible genius, an unconscious woman whose name I don’t remember, various office supplies…the usual stuff. I’d hire a maid if I thought there was even a chance that she wouldn’t judge me and/or report what’s going on to the authorities.
   
Despite these sloppy tendencies I also carry a strong streak of Teutonic order and efficiency in my genes, the same traits that have done so much good for the world, provided you ignore certain selected portions of the last century. That ancestral memory must have been holding the stick when it came time to sell my second novel, because I decided to make a rigorous documentation of the submission process. I know, it’s almost unbelievably exciting, but please stay calm and fully clothed while I explain.
   
I kept a list of all the people and institutions blessed by my unsolicited attentions, making sure to include dates of submission and rejection. I felt a little like a scientist, gathering data, lying like crazy, having bad hair, all of it. Despite this veneer, I didn’t even have a hypothesis, if you can believe it. I was confident the gathered data would prove useful, somehow, and I was totally vindicated.
   
Like all the best stories, it started with an e-mail. Based on hard-earned experience in the blood-soaked trenches where the “submit and wait” wars are waged and the ultimate victory is slowly creeping closer can’t you tell, I expected to have to wait at least a week before the “no.” Wrong. Try 300 seconds. I’d apparently sent a profanity-filled query letter for an anarchistic novel that also featured numerous threats directed toward the United Nations to a publisher that specializes in “cozies” for elderly ladies.

   
Someone less wise than your humble narrator would probably conclude that the lesson here is “actually research the people you submit to, maybe swear less and cut down on the non-sequiturial menacing.” That’s the wrong lesson. Well, all right, it maybe has a small bit of validity to it, but there’s something bigger to draw from all this.
   
Rejection is good. Failure is good.
   
If you’ve never lost you’ve never tried anything hard, if you’ve never heard “no” you should have kept asking for more until it finally happened. This is pretty radical thinking for a society that increasingly wants to insulate everyone from any and all competition, but we’re writers and dreamers and undead pornographers, so if we can’t handle it, no one can. Success is built on a thousand failures, friends. Go out and start getting those failures.
   
It isn’t personal, you’re still that special miracle and exact center of the universe, so don’t get discouraged. My goal for my next novel is to get rejected one hundred times. I bet I fail to reach that goal.

News You Can't Use: Scientists Have Built an 'Off Switch' for the Brain

One of humanity's most cherished dreams has always been devising a way to turn off the brain. From the development of alcohol and performing trepanning operations with rocks to first person shooters and talking phones the long war against the brain is the scarlet thread running through the human experience. For all these efforts, thought and awareness have proven worthy foes, defeating one new pacification technology after another. However, we may be finally seeing the victory in the long war against consciousness and volitional actions. 

Scientists have developed an “off-switch” for the brain to effectively shut down neural activity using light pulses.

They call it "television." I mean, am I wrong? Haw haw haw.

In 2005, Stanford scientist Karl Deisseroth discovered how to switch individual brain cells on and off by using light in a technique he dubbed 'optogenetics'.

You've got to wonder what sort of childhood produces a man whose life's work is switching off brain cells, but chooses to do it with "optogenetics" instead of, say, "Bud Lite."

However, light-sensitive proteins were efficient at switching cells on but proved less effective at turning them off.

I already know how to turn the damn thing on! I want my mind eraser!" 

Mr Deisseroth’s team has now re-engineered its light-sensitive proteins to switch cells much more adequately than before. His findings are presented in the journal Science.

It's hard to imagine something as amazingly adequate as this technology. I'd go so far as to call it the apotheosis of mediocrity. 

Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the study, said this improved “off” switch will help researchers to better understand the brain circuits involved in behavior, thinking and emotion.

The current level of understanding is still limited to ranting about "you humans" and our "stupid minds." 

Also, there's plenty of non-evil applications for this. No, seriously.

We’re excited about this increased light sensitivity of inhibition in part because we think it will greatly enhance work in large-brained organisms like rats and primates.

And by "primates" we mean various "disappearance" cases that we use to test this amazing brain annihilation technology. 

“It creates a powerful tool that allows neuroscientists to apply a brake in any specific circuit with millisecond precision, beyond the power of any existing technology,” Mr Insel explained.

This is not the neurological equivalent of "bro science," he added. 

Stanford University Neurologists battle the "ghoul apocalypse."

This technique could help scientists develop treatments for patients with some brain diseases as it could allow problematic parts of the brain to be switched off with light and tackled with minimal intrusion.

...and let's just shut off those parts that don't properly love Big Brother...

Merab Kokaia, PhD, a professor at Lund University Hospital in Sweden who has used optogenetics to study epilepsy and other conditions praised the research.

Come on everybody, let's praise the research! Yes, I can feel the spirit of materialism moving through you!

These features could be much more useful for behavioral studies in animals but could also become an effective treatment alternative for neurological conditions where drugs do not work, such as some cases of severe epilepsy and other hyper-excitability disorders," he said.

"Just keep looking into the "calm lights" and you'll be a good citizen in no time."

Full Story.

Komment Korner  

Old news. The brain "off" switch is why Democrats exist.

Mine has been turned off for years.

Where can I buy one for my wife.

Why not find the ON button for the majority of sleepwalking Americans?

Those Seljuk race who slayed 1.5 million Armenians ...and still they deny...!and Why...! 

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Naps Linked with Higher Risk of Death

Sometimes posting one of these is so easy it's like the work is already done before I start. Start with a poorly written article warning of the massive risks of ordinary behavior that cites no sources and contains literally nothing of value. Add something ridiculous like the "risk of death," as if some of us are going to get out of our shared fate by not sleeping except at approved hours. Top it off with tons of ads and the usual insightful online commentators and you've got some news that you can't possibly use.

New research shows middle-age and older adults who take naps may be at an increased risk of dying.

Older people less healthy, study finds!

Man, I really have to get in on this lying scientist racket. Get tax dollars to point out the obvious, yeah. That ain't working, that's the way you do it, put out the worthless study at the univer-sit-tee.

Experts discovered naps were linked with an increased risk of dying from respiratory diseases.

We never actually find out who these "experts" are, but hey, I'm in this science rip-off con to get PAID, not for silly fame.

Longer naps were linked with an even higher risk, so people whose daily naps lasted an hour or more were 32 percent more likely to die.

The biggest risk would be taking an insanely long eight hour "nap" every night. He used to sleep. Now he's dead. Clearly these two pieces of data are connected. Plus, look at how sleep even resembles death! It was right there in our face, all the time. It took the good people at *string missing* Institute to finally get at the truth.

Experts say it may not be napping that's unhealthy, but rather, that those who tend to nap also have undiagnosed medical conditions that affect their risk of dying.

So the entire thing is intentionally misleading nonsense. No, you can't have that grant money back. Sorry.

Resolved: The bottom third of the "Drudge Report" is not a good source of lifestyle advice.

Many factors were considered for this study such as age, gender, body mass index and whether participants smoked and how often they exercised.

"We probably should have mentioned that five paragraphs ago."

Don't visit the spam-dominated source. http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/25319794/study-naps-linked-with-higher-risk-of-death#axzz2ziwN6whz   

Komment Korner

Color me shocked that people who are 65+ are more likely to die in the next 13 years.

I will take a nap if I feel like it. I do expect to die some day.

All people who eat food end up dying, therefore, food kills people.

... especially if the napper doesn't wake up!

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: The Benefits of Eating Bugs

What happens when you combine fad diets, lying scientists and our good friend the insect? Well, you get today's article obviously, I don't know what you expected to happen here. Yup, it's all the fun of "gross" foods, evolutionary biology and her patented "It might have been like this, maybe, use your imagination" just-so explanations and maybe the occasional dig at feckless modern humanity. Let's solve all our problems by shoving handfuls of mealworms into our catcher's glove faces.

You've probably heard of the Stone Age diet craze known as the Paleolithic Diet, made popular most recently by Dr. Loren Cordain's best-seller The Paleo Diet.

Everyday is a battle against the urge to give myself a phony doctorate and promptly vomit out a book full of junk science that would kill you if you actually followed it to the letter. Luckily, knowing who reads those sort of books, there shouldn't be too many causalities to this outrageous fraud I've committed in my own mind many, many times.

It's the one time, it seems, that being like a caveman is a good thing. 

I mean you wouldn't want to emulate the self-reliance, independence or unapologetic masculinity. We need you in that cubicle, after all. Eat bugs, sure.

The theory goes (and archaeological evidence corroborates) that early hunter-gatherers, while they may not have lived as long, still had some major health advantages on most of us modern humans.

Much healthier than you, but dead by twenty from a wasting disease. Do you see the inherent contradiction here?

Higher levels of physical activity also played a vital role in cave people's vitality, and so did their high levels of wild food consumption: wild game meat, gathered greens and fruits, and healthy fats such as nuts.

This massive speculation is science.

Cordain suggests that prior to the agricultural revolution, early humans ate this Paleo Diet for 2.5 million years.

Long, long ago, in a magical kingdom far, far away...

"From the time mammals first appeared until 50 million years ago — a total of 150 million years, three quarters of the entire time mammals have existed — our ancestors were primarily insectivorous," write S. Boyd Eaton and Dorothy A. Nelson in their paper "Calcium in Evolutionary Perspective."

Take at seat and get comfortable kids, S. Boyd Eaton and Dorthy Nelson are going to tell you a fairy story about our lemur-like forebears and their calcium consumption during the time of the Thunder Lizards.

It's easy to observe this early pre-human diet in the wild today, since versions of this prehistoric bug-guzzler still exist in the form of bush babies, tree shrews, and similar small mammals.

And let's be honest here, you're basically a glorified shrew or bush baby.

It turns out that for a certain size of primate, bugs are one of the best things on the planetary menu. If we were still that size, that's pretty much all we'd eat, too.

But this is America and we've got curves and only dogs dig on bones and you can't even handle all of this I bet.

But for whatever reason, we grew, in both body and brain size.

Then something happened for no discernible reason and the bush babies of the Jurassic are now walking upright, using glory holes and writing erotic stories about the living dead.

The problem was not with the bugs themselves, but just that we couldn't find enough of them.

The problem isn't you, termite mound. The problem is me. We drifted apart. I've grown in brain and body size. It was fun, but it was over. Please, just be glad it happened instead of angry it ended.

This is one of the miracles and geniuses of being a primate: our innate adaptability to different diets, also known as omnivory ("omni" = everything, "vory" = eating). We adapted so that we could eat everything and anything and still survive.

We even adapted special motor scooters and wet rags on poles to support this "everything and anything" lifestyle.

The main reason for this is that insects are a much higher quality food compared to things like leaves, fruits, flowers, and even nuts.

Yeah, that fad diet scam is really starting to take shape in my mind. "Eat all the flowers you want!" maybe? "Leave the fat with leaves?" Still needs some work.

Nutrition is sort of like money: If leaves represent dollar bills, fruits are fives, nuts are tens, and insects and other forms of animal flesh are crisp fifty-dollar bills.

A somewhat decent pizza would be equivalent to winning the lottery.

When you think of the hallmarks of evolution, what image pops up?

Fraudsters attaching human jaws to monkey skulls.

But like a dog that stares at the pointing finger instead of the ball

We missed out on all the ball-related GLORY.

In fact, as it turns out, the skill of collecting termites is easier observed than done.

Here at Career Institute University Employment College we'll teach you real job skills like fixing submarine engines and termite collection.

"Termites are a valuable source of protein, fat, and essential amino acids, in the diets of both primates and modern humans," wrote Backwell.

Lift balls to the walls + eat the termites from said walls = massive gains.

Let's imagine you are an evolving proto-human, and you have this excellent source of protein

It's sort of like in Altered Beast, except it's horrific vermin making you bigger instead of flying blue orbs.

As the author of the blog PaleoVeganology quips, "It's as though someone took a big can of Raid to the authors'

See, this is why no one ever says things like "Man, that scientist party was awfully crazy."

So steeped are they in their Western food bias and paleofantasies that the possibility of Paleolithic man fulfilling his nutrient requirements with a diet of creepy-crawlies never occurred to them.

Stop using your so-called life experience and eat these grubs I found under a rock.

Oh, how times have changed: When an early female hominid saw a bug and shrieked, it was in excitement, because hey, lunch.

We know everyone stopped reading this article about ten paragraphs ago during that whole "150 million years ago!" mess so we might as well sneak in some casual sexism.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

ACQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS CAN'T BE PASSED ON

I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterward) before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges/universities.

This gives me butterflies in my stomach.

I wonder how much PETA contributed to this article. I don't know where they find the time, I'm sure there's still some puppies and kitten that need to be killed in the back of a van somewhere

The way Lucifer Jr. is printing money & driving us into am imminent financial collapse, we will all be forced to eat grub, worms, & dirt.

Shill Section

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Exercise Data Reveal a Couch Potato Nation

Americans are fat. This is not news. But hey, we've got "science" in the form of attaching hungry, hungry citizens of this great republic to various probes and sensors and then recording the lethargy. The results, predictably, paint a picture of real women with real curves, real men with real sleep apnea issues and a nation that would never leave the couch, ever, if such a paradise was somehow obtainable.

Americans are stuck in chairs and on the couch, spending eight hours a day with their metabolic engines barely idling

And that isn't even counting the so-called "sleeping" that wastes another eight hours.

According to data from sensors that scientists put on nearly 2,600 people to see what they actually did all day.

"Can't I just write down what I do and report back? I think my word should be good enough."

"No. Sensors."

The results were not encouraging: Obese women averaged about 11 seconds a day at vigorous exercise

This exercise consisted of opening various food containers.

11 seconds? How is that even possible? It's been awhile since I've had an 11 second vigorous exercise and the truth is it happens to all men sometimes so stop looking at me like that and let me go to sleep.

While men and women of normal weight exercised vigorously (on the level of a jog or brisk uphill hike) for less than two minutes a day, according to the study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

While not quite a two pump (of knees while hiking uphill) chump, it's not especially good, either.

I'm guessing the land whales used in this study thought the "mayo clinic" was some sort of mayonnaise research center and by the time they figured out it wasn't the medical devices had already been attached.

If you included moderate exercise, such as yoga or golf, folks of normal weight logged about 2.5 to 4 hours weekly, according to the data. In part, that’s good news: federal recommendations for adults include 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic activity coupled with muscle-strengthening exercise.

So really, everything is fine.

Still, the data sketch a nearly supine population profile, with days marked by long hours of sedentary behavior, particularly for those who are overweight or obese.

One nation, fully prone, gasping for breath, with assorted salty snack items and sugar syrups for all.

Edward C. Archer, a nutrition and obesity researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “How you spend your day determines whether you store your food as fat or store your food in your muscle, healthfully.” 

I don't think it's possible to be an "obesity researcher" in the USA and not be constantly on the verge of a violent meltdown.

Time for those eleven seconds of vigorous exercise.

For the obese, the study confirms what has been known for some time -- they are stuck in a “vicious cycle” of  inactivity and weight gain, said Archer.

We have now proven the "what goes around come around" hypothesis and are close to a unifying theory of how you can't have your cake and eat it too.

The difference between those who were overweight and those with a normal range body mass amounted to four to six minutes of moderate to vigorous activity, the study showed.

If we could just get everyone to climb a sheer cliff face while weighted down with 100 pounds of gear as quickly as possible for a lousy six minutes a day we would solve this problem.

Although socioeconomic data were not included in the paper, previous research has shown that low-income people, particularly single mothers, are most likely to falling into a low-exercise lifestyle, in part from the demands of work and from the condition of recreational facilities in their neighborhoods.

Although the article is pretty much over I thought I'd throw in this irrelevant digression that has vaguely political undertones for no good reason.

“Ultimately the greatest inequalities we have is in our health behaviors,” he said.

"If only there was some way to redistribute exercise using coercive methods via a state-controlled apparatus, perhaps after a bloody revolution where the 'health nobility' are targeted."

“Unfortunately, we live most of our life going from chair to chair to chair. And if we can change that, just a little bit, we can have a massive impact on our healthcare costs.”

Just remember, you are the sum of the value you create minus the costs of sustaining your life and that's it. For the good of an impersonal and often hostile system, shape the hell up.

Full Article.

Komment Korner  

There is a long political tradition of abusing fat kids

JUST A ROUTINE AUDIT, CITIZEN-UNIT...

Getting down to the floor also allows for greater mobility as one streches and moves the body.

Yeah, and their new model is Planet Fitness, where serious fitness buffs are excluded, uninvited, and overtly discouraged from membership.

I've noticed the three most prominent "fat jobs" are goobmit, deadumacation, and hellth care.

Shill Section

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: You Can't Walk Straight While Texting, Study Confirms

I'm a walking dude. As such I'm pretty interested in exciting new developments in the field of upright mobility. Sadly, the best we're going to get is another "Texting is bad, stop it!" article to throw on the pile. Sorry guys, it's of vital importance that someone I barely even like gets that important "lol, wut a werld" update.

Texting can make you drive like a drunk. Now a new study shows that texting can also make you walk like a robot.

Robots, of course, are industrial devices used for dangerous and/or repetitive jobs that really don't "walk" at all. I applaud the author for trying to avoid another "zombie" reference, but that simile's utility is like a clock radio from 1973.

Researchers found that healthy people who read or send texts while hoofing it show subtle but potentially hazardous changes to their gait.

My healthy trot, ruined!

As pedestrians busily tap and flick, they swerve more, walk more slowly and move their heads, arms and torsos in a stiff, graceless fashion that makes them more prone to falling when confronted with an obstacle.

If we don't start closing the smooth moves gap this is creating we'll all lose out. We must restore the soulful strut.

Also, crashing into things is bad, I guess.

"Reading and texting on a phone influence your ability to walk, but the problems we see are much greater when you text than when you read,"

They're even greater when you drink, like, eight beers and put a sack over your head. Because we need to put everything on some type of continuum or it won't make sense.

Smartphone-wielding pedestrians have made the news and the upper ranks of YouTube by walking off piers, falling onto train tracks and blundering into fountains, but the accidents aren't always comic.

There's a difference between "comical misery" and "tragic misery." Off a pier or into tracks is funny, we are told.

In one high-profile incident, a 15-year-old girl in Maryland was hit by a car and killed in 2012 while looking at her phone, and a recent rise in U.S. pedestrian deaths in traffic accidents has been attributed partly to cellphone use.

We were all having a good healthy laugh at people falling into unforgiving steel rails and then some kill-joy is all "That ain't funny, man. Some jail bait on the east coast died like that."

Even though all 26 subjects were seasoned texters, spending an average of 30 minutes a day texting, they still couldn't walk normally as they texted.

They still couldn't spell words normally or preserve any dignity, either.

It's not entirely clear why the walk of a texting pedestrian is distorted.

Yeah, it's such an impenetrable mystery. Clearly a lot more tax-dollar funded research is needed.

Or perhaps the multitasking of walking while attending to a text overwhelms the brain, which then prioritizes that cool app over keeping to the straight and narrow.

Brain...overwhelmed...massive system failure...walking like robot...smooth moves lost...not a kool kat, not anymore...

Don't you mean "robots."

The study is "excellent," says Stony Brook University's Lisa Muratori, a behavioral neuroscientist who was not involved in the new research and who has also studied walking during cellphone use.

This study is just totally righteous, declared some unrelated individual with an impressive-sounding title with little, if any, practicality.

"In a healthy person it shouldn't cause a fall, necessarily, but a trip over a curb into a street is a big problem."

Do it in an empty pasture and you should be fine.

The increased head movement reported in the study "is a really bad thing for gait," says University of Pittsburgh bioengineer April Chambers, who was not involved in the research.

Thank you for adding no new information and having a name better suited to "adult" entertainment.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

I've been bashed into head on by people walking and texting in the mall. You try to swerve out of their way but it's not always successful.

I was amazed to see that this was a serious article/study. I expected this to be an Onion story.

After the implant you will be able to drive, walk, run, take a bath, engage in sexual encounters and at the same time send and receive insulting comments from USA Today readers.

For years, I have been trying to make people aware of this hazard.

Turn your units off


Shill Section

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

Choose Your Own Adventure 21: Hyperspace

It's been over a month, but it's back to reading thirty year-old children's books and treating the results of that activity as equal parts academic dissertation, comedy amateur night and "everything sucks" critic. Last time out the book started with a 50% chance of death which insured a short run. Things are looking up this time, however. Hyperspace contains not only the usual "Warning!!!!" but also a "Special Note" and a "Special Warning!!!!" Yes, those were the actual punctuations. Basically the first pages are like the owner's manual of a car written by someone who just drank a dozen Jolt colas. "Limited Warranty!!!! Replacing the Windshield Wipers!!!!" That sort of thing.

The upshot of all this overly ridiculous literary emoting is I'll be dealing with parallel universes, there are no rules, there might be five or even possibly six dimensions and all the other expected "Baby's Introduction to Wheelchair Man Physics." We get an analogy of an ant that has lived its entire life in a balloon and suddenly the balloon pops. That's what we're up against. Properly girded on from all these admonitions, it's time to actually hit page one.

 Science!

It turns out an Albert Einstein analogue is living in my neighborhood and one day I finally get my chance to hang out with this righteous science dude. Yes, there was a time when "I'd like to get to know others" was actually a priority in people's lives, but luckily we have finally destroyed such unnatural thought via technology. I'm eager to learn about the "higher mathematics" this learnin' guy has been dropping, but he suggests a book. You know what, no. 

You had me at "ice orbs."

He takes me to his laboratory and there's all kinds of ill science stuff, namely a giant glass globe and various levers. This is sort of like that thing in Switzerland that's teaching us a little more about the Big Bang, knowledge that is more than worth the risk of accidentally destroying our universe. This "hypolaser" is apparently capable of opening a rift in time space and entering other dimensions. The professor has devoted his entire life to this device, but lacks the balls to actually deploy it. Not wanting to be a bad guest, I'm supportive of his sissy who ran from the singularity tendencies. 

I'm all, "maybe you should ask other scientists and not some kid who is going to lose all interest in this silly stuff in a few months when puberty kicks in." He responds to this wise counsel by pulling a lever and vanishing. 

Simulating creation is easier than convincing people not to kill each other.

When faced with uncertainty and likely disaster pulling random levers seems like a sensible course of action. How about green? This results in literally nothing happening. Defeated, I slink away, realizing that complicated scientific procedures like pulling colored levers are best left to those with decades of training. Midway through the academic equivalent of the walk of shame something explodes behind me.

I run back into the house, which now smells like burnt-out wires and is a total mess. Incredibly, my science homie is sprawled out on the floor but otherwise unhurt. He concedes that his life's work was basically one giant bad idea and that he tampered in God's domain. Apparently he went to a universe "too horrible to describe" and this was enough to scare him off of hyperspace research. Please ignore the obvious parallels this story has with experimenting with mind-altering drugs.

"I can handle strange cards, but when they stick too..."

Instead of visiting mind-boggling alien dimensions my read-through was basically a warning not to take hallucinogens. Kind of disappointing. If I'd actually read the book he gave me it would have turned out to be a Choose Your Own Adventure story within a Choose Your Own Adventure. Whoa man, I'm freaking out! There's also a scene where you meet author Edward Packard, complete with a creepy illustration. I don't know if I can handle that sort of wildness, special warnings or not.

Shill Section  

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Scientists Finally Discover The Function of the Human Appendix

Science is never allowed to admit it doesn't know the answer. Make up highly improbably post hoc explanations, lie like crazy, or just declare that the function of an organ is "nothing." Then when you're proven wrong, take a comical visit to a "Creation Museum" until the heat dies down. Might be time to go look at that "Old Testament Dinosaurs" exhibit again, guys.

It has long been regarded as a potentially troublesome, redundant organ, but American researchers say they have discovered the true function of the appendix.

Any criticisms about the dearth of scientific achievement produced by Big Brother Canada can now cease. We figured out that an organ in the human body does things, instead of being an internal hood ornament.

The researchers say it acts as a safe house for good bacteria, which can be used to effectively reboot the gut following a bout of dysentery or cholera.

Great news for anyone planning to write a noir about the immune system. "I was still leaking from my shoulder when I hit the alley, but considering I blasted that virus right in the groceries with my own heater and left it bleeding out like a sieve on some filthy sidewalk I ain't complaining. Pathogen died hard, bawling like a animal. That's how you reboot the gut, haw haw. Gotta get to the safety of the appendix, wait there until the cholera stops dog-tailing me."

The conventional wisdom is that the small pouch protruding from the first part of the large intestine is redundant and many people have their appendix removed and appear none the worse for it.

The science of gaps.

"Shocker: Lindsay unable to reboot gut."

Scientists from the Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina say following a severe bout of cholera or dysentery, which can purge the gut of bacteria essential for digestion, the reserve good bacteria emerge from the appendix to take up the role.

Nothing screams SCIENCE!!! like repeated references to the "gut." Perhaps the appendix also plays a role in "going with your gut" and so forth. I had it removed, destroying the male version of intuition, etc.

But Professor Bill Parker says the finding does not mean we should cling onto our appendices at all costs.

Forget you, professor. I'm going to keep bitterly clinging to my appendix, fearing the vibrant change out of ignorance.

“So it’s sort of a fun thing that we’ve found, but we don’t want it to cause any harm, we don’t want people to say, “oh, my appendix has a function”, so I’m not going to go to the doctor, I’m going to try to hang onto it.”

"I mean, I'm not some kind of monster. I'd feel a little bad if people started dying over this or something."

“As an idea it’s an attractive one, that perhaps it would be a nice place for these little bacteria to localise in, a little cul-de-sac away from everything else,” he said.

I like my immunological noir better than this guy's "Bridges of Immune System County."

“The thing is that if we observe what’s been happening through evolution, the higher on the evolutionary scale we are and the more omnivorous animals become, then the smaller and less important the appendix becomes and humans are a good example of that.

We now know it's a safe house for good bacteria and/or a special little tucked away community for them to share the rich pageant of life. We can stop with the lies.

Full Story.

Komment Korner

Melissa, don’t worry about GC. He’ll select himself out of the gene pool when he gets appendicitis and doesn’t get it removed.

And the media or someone taught ya’ll to have to say something negative about a scientist who is attempting to learn more?

That has nothing to do with her appendix, Rita.

LOL! you’re funny, like a child.

The next day, I felt worser


Aaron Zehner's first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in e-book format at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

News You Can't Use: Comfort Food Could Worsen Mood

If you're too much of a sissy wimp coward to inject the fruit of the golden triangle right into your neck veins chances are you're medicating yourself with food instead. If you're American, that chance is about as close to 100% as any statistical probability is going to get without some academic dishonesty going on. Yup, nothing better to fix that bad mood than shoveling massive portions of chemical poison into the old gaping maw while cholesterol-filled tears slide down your greasy, fat face. Welcome to the closest approximation of paradise that can be experienced in this fleshy prison (if you're too yellow-bellied to do needle drugs, that is). Incredibly, the argument has been advanced by nothing less than SCIENCE that this gorging process might not actually bring the happiness you would expect. Clearly further investigation is warranted and that's why this is News You Can't Use.

I feel better already. Also my arm is tingling.

Humans are often tempted to consume rich, unhealthy foods when feeling stress, depression or anger, a practice commonly referred to as “eating one’s feelings.”

I love the bizarre and condescending tone this article begins with. You crazy "humans" and your so-called "feelings." I can only surmise that this article was written by the world's smartest ape or the world's most average android. Let's try to understand this weird ritual conducted by "humans."

For many, fattening food options are also easier to obtain, and the consumption of comfort foods such as fast food is common practice in the United States – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, 11.3 percent of the average American diet consisted of fast food between 2007 and 2010.

So if you were living in Bora Bora for the past forty years and just got an internet connection, somehow, and wanted to check how the good ole You Ess of Ayy was doing, there's your answer. We're stuffing greasy horse-meat in out grotesquely bloated faces.

After soda was outlawed, The Man came for me next. But I was ready.

 

CDC researchers additionally observed, “As lifestyles become more hectic, fast-food consumption has become a growing part of the American diet.”

As writers become more lazy, unattributed quotes has become a growing part of padding out an article.

The study, conducted at Pennsylvania State University, reportedly found that eating poorly not only worsens moods, it also doesn’t do much to alter moods positively before or during meals.

Fortunately lying, monkey-flying scientists have taken a break from proving atheism to ruin binge-eating. The goal of science seems to be to make sure everyone is deeply depressed all the time.

Zero facts.

 

The negative emotions experienced after treats are said to be primarily connected to concerns regarding body image and maintaining a proper diet.

I honestly wonder who is saying this. The article certainly doesn't know. More top quality "research" from an Ivy League diploma-mill.

Researchers reportedly collected data for the study by asking 131 women with unhealthy eating habits and self-image concerns – but who did not exhibit signs of an eating disorder – to travel with handheld computers that prompted the participants several times daily to answer questions about dietary choices and mood at a given time.

You have no signs of an eating disorder, but you eat in an unhealthy fashion. Here, take this handheld computer that will apply constant guilt to your fat ass throughout the day. Then let us know if you're happy. People are getting paid for this sort of drivel. 

Original Article.

As usual I recommend that you don't click that link unless you want to be bombarded with ads for garbage that no one, anywhere, needs. Does anyone actually click on that b.s., let alone waste money on it? Now there's a study. Pick people with unhealthy internet habits but no internet habit disorders. Give them another, tiny little computer. Track the mood. This is science. Can I has grant money?

Aaron Zehner's first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in e-book format at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.