Soleil Moon Frye vs Alanis Morrisette – separated at birth?
Also, this just in: Just 30 minutes of continuous kissing can diminish the body’s allergic reaction to pollen, relaxing the body and reducing production of histamine, a chemical cell given out in response to allergens.
Clearly, injections are for the birds. Who wants to help me be less allergic? ;)
There’s a song called Duende by Delirium. It’s kind of odd, but the oddest thing is that, as I was working, I could hear it calling my name.
No, I mean literally.
Listen to it if you have it, and tell me that the background singers aren’t saying my full name over and over again.
(Actually, don’t tell me that, I’d rather keep my tenuously-determined fame.)
Unrelatedly, I really wish LJ allowed icons larger than 40k. photo-animations are lame when you have a color palette of … 32.
New research could lead to ‘invisible’ electronics
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Recent advances could lead to displays that are indistinguishable from plates of glass when not displaying an image. |
Researchers have long worked on developing new types of displays powered by electronics without visible wires. But, until now, no one was able to develop materials for transistors that could be “invisible” while still maintaining a high level of performance.
“Our development provides new strategies for creating transparent electronics,” said Tobin J. Marks, the Vladimir N. Ipatieff Research Professor in Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern and professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research. “You can imagine a variety of applications for new electronics that haven’t been possible previously — imagine displays of text or images that would seem to be floating in space.”
Transistors are used for all the switching and computing necessary in electronics, and, in displays, they are used to power and switch the light sources.
High-performance, transparent transistors could be combined with existing kinds of light display technologies, such as organic light-emitting diodes, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and electroluminescent displays, which are already used in televisions, desktop and laptop computers and cell phones.
To create their thin-film transistors, Marks’ group combined films of the inorganic semiconductor indium oxide with a multilayer of self-assembling organic molecules that provides superior insulating properties.
The indium oxide films can be fabricated at room temperature, allowing the transistors to be produced at a low cost. And, in addition to being transparent, the transistors outperform the silicon transistors currently used in LCD screens and perform nearly as well as high-end polysilicon transistors.
Prototype displays using the transistors developed at Northwestern could be available in 12 to 18 months, said Marks. He has formed a start-up company, Polyera, to bring this and related technologies to market.
Mmmm, self-assembling organic molecules. That’s so hot.
I wonder, with all the complicated physical and chemical signals going
back and forth during pregnancy, whether a mother’s regular
learning/exercising of her mind affects the child. I would love to see
a long-term study, but I toss my hands up at the idea of how you would
neutralize factors like social and economic status, quality of food
[damn it, I’m listening to “bloodbath dance” on my headphones, and
the CSL is on the phone again, and shouting again.], and genetic
propensity for learning.
A very large study finished recently that found that if you teach
mental skills (rationalization, speed, etc) for a few hours, once, to
people 70 years old, they’ll retain more mental capacity/skill in five
years than otherwise. It reinforces the idea that you must
exercise your brain, and that a (relatively) tiny amount of mental work
can make positive changes, even late in life.
I do like it when my boss and my boss’s boss look at a video I
was struggling with (poor lighting, and of course shots I wanted but
didn’t have), and say “It’s a home run. That’s perfect.”
What have I learned about her now, that anyone on this floor now knows
due to the loud voice? That she spends the holidays with her
ex-boyfriend’s family, which gets complicated when he brings girlfriends
and spouses over.
I’m bemused about it because it’s not like *I* don’t visit jupiters_angel‘s family around Christmas Time, and that has
certainly had unusual effects when she brings an S.O. that isn’t
comfortable with it. BUT I DON’T SHOUT IT OVER THE PHONE AT WORK.
I should say that she’s been detailing this for about 20 minutes.
“I’m telling you I’m starting to think I’m doomed to be a single
mother.”
“LALALALALALA, NOT LISTENING…”
 “Senior reptile keeper Matt Swatman shows two eggs laid by female Komodo Dragon Flora at Chester zoo in Chester, northern England. Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies. All of the eggs she is hatching were fertilised without the help of a male partner.” |
I love, most of all, the almost-sulky look on the senior reptile keeper’s face.
What a great pair of links!
Visual guide to the history of religious expansion – somacandra, I’m lookin’ at you! Heh. The bit at the end with Israel, well, my twisted brain found it amusing. It was like someone said “Okay guys, who let the jews back in the party? Was it you, Uncle Sam, you naughty boy?”
I’d be interested in seeing this exact thing, except with a more diverse color-coding for christianity.
Also, AN ARG FOR THE TRANSFORMERS MOVIE. Thanks to CJ who posted it! It’s way too “flash-y” for me to look at from work, sadly, but I’ll check it out after I get home.
(EDIT: I forgot – the password is takara83. Also, go here to see the brand-new-today trailer. I haven’t watched that, either.
She’s kindly left a christmas card for each and every one of us in the department. Other than the company itself, she’s the only person to do so.
It says, and I quote:
