Jeremy Eades @ 02-04-2008
And here I thought Xerox was for copying body parts at the office Xmas party. Turns out, printing technology is very flexible and researchers are trying to adapt it to various applications such as water purification machines and printing solar panels.
There’s also a bit of history on PARC (Palo Alto Research Center):
PARC is one of the older–and more productive–industrial incubators. Xerox founded it in 1970, and 30 companies have been spun out of it. Inventions from the lab include the mouse, Ethernet, the Alto (the archetype of the PC), the laser printer, and, ignominiously, the computer worm. It was also one of the first industrial organizations to employ anthropologists and ethnographers. Xerox wanted to know how people actually interacted with copiers (besides hitting them and swearing at them).
I didn’t know private industry did this, perhaps these centers operate in the background and we just don’t hear about them very often.
(via DailyTech) (image via Zixii)
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Edward Willett @ 05-10-2007
It’s Ig Nobel time again, as the Annals of Improbable Research honors research achievements "that make people laugh – then think." This year’s winners include the U.S. military for its plans to make a "gay bomb," the use of Viagra to help hamsters recover from jet lag, and a medical study of the risks of sword swallowing. (Via New Scientist.)
The awards are handed out by real Nobel laureates, and the popular ceremony (this year’s theme: Chickens!) also featured a humorous "Moments of Science" skit and a contest to win a date with a Nobel laureate ("He’s shapely, he’s sassy and he’s smarter than you.")
Alas, no one from the U.S. military showed up to receive its Ig Nobel. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons.)
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Paul Raven @ 10-09-2007
I mentioned the first rumblings of this story back in the spring, but I think it’s worth mentioning again because we can be pretty sure that politico types are going to get a lot of mileage out of it over the next week or so: new neurological research suggests there are fundamental differences in the brain functions of people with conservative and liberal attitudes. My money says we’ll hear both sides of the political divide using these results as grist for their mill … which leads me to conclude it’s so self-evident as to be largely useless. Of course, your mileage may vary!
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Paul Raven @ 06-09-2007
In a rare move of clear-eyed sanity, the British government has given scientists provisional permission to create non-viable human/animal hybrid embryos - for research purposes. Apparently surveys discovered that - once the actual limits and realities of the science were explained - most people were “at ease” with the idea. Perhaps once it’s seen to be safe, attitudes elsewhere may loosen up as well.
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And here I thought Xerox was for copying body parts at the office Xmas party. Turns out, printing technology is very flexible and researchers are trying to adapt it to various applications such as water purification machines and printing solar panels.
