Ohio State tech licensing income tops $3M for first time, still low among Big Ten research schools

Ohio State University made a record $3.2 million in royalties and other income in fiscal 2017 from licensing technology developed by its researchers and staff.
That represents a nearly 50 percent increase from five years ago and the largest one-year jump since then.
But unless something drastic changes at other Big Ten schools, Ohio State won’t move up very far in the ranks of the conference’s tech commercialization champs.
In the prior year that ended June 30, 2016, Ohio State’s $2.66 million…

via Columbus Business News – Local Columbus News | Business First of Columbus
Ohio State tech licensing income tops $3M for first time, still low among Big Ten research schools

Cloudy with a chance of F-bombs: Bus blocks Weather Channel’s video of Atlanta dome implosion

The Atlanta Falcons came to Seattle Monday night and kind of ran over the Seahawks like a bus. But back east, the Falcons’ old stadium, the Georgia Dome, had to contend with a bus of its own.

In a video with comedic timing so perfect it might as well have been shot for “Saturday Night Live,” The Weather Channel suffered the worst possible fate during a live stream Monday afternoon intended to show the destruction of the 71,250-seat stadium.

Positioned a ways away and across a street, the Dome fills the frame of the video and people are lined along a guardrail getting ready to capture the explosions on their own cameras.

“6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …” says a voice over a loud speaker before an initial explosion starts the sequence. And into the frame rolls a MARTA city bus, completely blocking The Weather Channel’s shot of the historic event in the 25-year-old building’s history.

“&*%^! Get out of the way, bus!” shouts a voice from behind the camera, with a couple more bleeps thrown in. “Argh! Man, lady!” the voice says as the driver engages the bus and pulls away, revealing a cloud of smoke where the Dome used to be.

Today on The Weather Channel, cloudy with a chance of F-bombs.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, the Falcons were having fun scoring early and often against the Seahawks — and scoring points on Twitter at MARTA’s expense.

And it only makes sense to connect that city’s Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority back to Seattle (where the city blew up its Kingdome back in 2000).

As KING 5 reported a couple years ago, MARTA is the rapid transit system that Seattle should have gotten had its voters not rejected millions of dollars in federal funding nearly 50 years ago.

From the story:

King County voters rejected the regional bonds necessary to fund the rail plan — first in 1968 and then more decisively in 1970 — leaving $900 million in federal funds on the table, or more than $5 billion in 2015 dollars.

That money went to Atlanta, a city that was happy to take what Seattle turned down. With those federal dollars and local matching funds, Atlanta built MARTA — a subway system that carries nearly a quarter million riders every day.

In 2017 Seattle, forget missed field goals for a second. That lost transit dream is enough to make you want to implode.

via GeekWire
Cloudy with a chance of F-bombs: Bus blocks Weather Channel’s video of Atlanta dome implosion

GE hub connects its smart lights to Alexa and Google

When GE introduced its latest C-series smart light bulbs, the focus was on affordability — as they talked directly to your phone through Bluetooth, you didn’t need a bridge device. That kept them out of touch of voice assistants, however, which meant replacing the whole lot if you wanted hands-free control. Well, you won’t have to rethink your investment from now on: GE has introduced a hub, the C-Reach, that puts its bulbs on WiFi to enable support for Amazon’s Alexa and (by the end of 2017) Google Assistant. As with most smart lighting kits, you can steer lights individually or in groups just by talking to your phone or a smart speaker.

The C-Reach is available on Amazon right now, although whether or not it makes sense depends on what you buy and when. By itself, the hub costs $50 — your once-thrifty lighting setup could suddenly cost about as much as its peers. Things get better if you’re starting fresh. A kit with a hub and two basic C-Life bulbs (which only do white light) will sell for $65, or $50 if you buy on Cyber Monday. A bundle with color temperature-shifting C-Sleep bulbs sells for $85, or $65 on Cyber Monday. If you don’t need more advanced bulbs from a system like Philips’ Hue, this might represent a bargain.

Via: The Verge, Slashgear

Source: GE

via Engadget
GE hub connects its smart lights to Alexa and Google

How an unpaid UK researcher saved the Japanese seaweed industry

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A nori farm off the coast of Japan.

H. Grobe

The tasty Japanese seaweed nori is ubiquitous today, but that wasn’t always true. Nori was once called “lucky grass” because every year’s harvest was entirely dependent on luck. Then, during World War II, luck ran out. No nori would grow off the coast of Japan, and farmers were distraught. But a major scientific discovery on the other side of the planet revealed something unexpected about the humble plant and turned an unpredictable crop into a steady and plentiful food source.

Nori is most familiar to us when it’s wrapped around sushi. It looks less familiar when floating in the sea, but for centuries, farmers in Japan, China, and Korea knew it by sight. Every year, they would plant bamboo poles strung with nets in the coastal seabed and wait for nori to build up on them.

At first it would look like thin filaments. Then, with luck, it grew into healthy, harvestable plants with long, green leaves. The farmers never saw seeds or seedlings, so no one could cultivate it. The filaments simply appeared every year. That is, they appeared until after World War II, when pollution, industrialization along the coast, and a series of violent typhoons led to a disastrous drop in harvests. By 1951, nori production in Japan had been all but wiped out.

Mary Drew-Baker discovered the unusual life cycle of nori and saved the Japanese seaweed farming industry.
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Mary Drew-Baker discovered the unusual life cycle of nori and saved the Japanese seaweed farming industry.

Smithsonian Institution

Nori’s secret identity

Fortunately, on an island at the other end of Eurasia, Kathleen Drew-Baker had recently gotten fired. She had been a lecturer in botany at the University of Manchester where she studied algae that reproduced using spores rather than flowers. But the university did not employ married women. So when she got married to fellow academic Henry Wright-Baker she was kicked off the faculty and relegated to a job as an unpaid research fellow.

Drew-Baker focused on a type of nori unfamiliar to nearly everyone: Porphyra umbilicalis. It’s a leafy seaweed that grows off the coast of Wales. Locals harvest it, grind it up, and use it to make bread or soup. Known colloquially as laver, it’s still eaten in Britain but has not attained the international standing of nori.

Drew-Baker and her husband made a seaside lab where she could study its lifecycle. During her research, she noticed that she kept running across what seemed to be an entirely different species, known as Conchocelis. Conchocelis is a group of single-celled organisms that look like pinkish sludge and grow on the inside of abandoned shells. Drew-Baker noticed the pink sludge was especially common during the summer months, while the seaweed showed up during the winter months.

Eventually, Drew-Baker realized she was dealing with the plant equivalent of a superhero who is never seen at the same time as his alter-ego. These seemingly different species were actually the same. They were both a type of algae. In the summer, the leafy green seaweed sent out spores that collected and grew as the pink sludge in shells. In the winter, the pink sludge sent out spores that collected on debris (and bamboo poles) and built up into the seaweed again. In 1949, Drew-Baker published a paper in Nature detailing her discovery, “Conchocelis-Phase in the Life-History of Porphyra umbilicalis.”

This might have been nothing more than a bit of trivia if it weren’t for a second expert. Back in Japan, Segawa Sokichi at the Shimoda Marine Biological Station read Drew-Baker’s paper and realized that what was true for Welsh seaweed was probably true for Japanese seaweed. The reason nobody had been able to find nori seeds was because they were looking for the wrong plant. And nori had stopped thriving of the coast because of disruptions to seabeds full of the shells where the pink sludge liked to grow.

Thanks to Drew-Baker’s work, Segawa was able to invent the industrial process that lead to the stable, predictable production of nori, for which everyone with a taste for sushi should be grateful.

A satellite photo shows seaweed farms off the coast of South Korea.
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A satellite photo shows seaweed farms off the coast of South Korea.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Seaweed goes high tech

Today, nori farmers leave nothing to luck. They still harvest the leafy stage of the seaweed from the sea. After that, technology takes over. Any spores grown by the leafy form of nori are chopped down to an ideal seeding length of 0.4mm. To encourage the spores to grow into their single-celled stage, farmers import shells from oyster fisheries, string them on fishing line, and hang them in huge vats of water that reproduce the ideal environment for the pink sludge to grow.

Inside the tanks, chlorine is added to the seawater to get rid of any harmful pathogens. It’s filtered with sand to remove pollution. Industrial workers regulate the oxygen levels in the tanks and add in precise amounts of magnesium, sodium, iron, and potassium. Even the light levels are controlled. Indeed, nori farms only use the bottom shell of oysters because they are smoother and allow for more control over the level of light the Conchocelis spores are exposed to.

While the spores grow, a bit of biological engineering goes on as well. Each new batch of spores brought in from the ocean is sampled, cultured, and stored. Its production rate and the conditions under which it thrives are noted. As a result, researchers have identified spores that produce seaweed in waters of varying levels of saltiness, as well as various temperatures. With rising global temperatures, knowing which spores can survive best in warmer water will probably come in handy sooner rather than later.

Nori tanks also use temperature to induce the Conchocelis to move into the next stage of its life cycle. The waters are kept at summer-warm levels until it’s time to harvest the spores that will produce seaweed. Then the facilities drop the temperature in the tanks to shock the Conchocelis into work.

An agitator encourages the release of the second set of spores and gets them swirling around the tanks. Most facilities have the agitation state timed to the minute. Then workers put nets into the tanks for “seeding.” The nets are rolled onto human-sized spools to be sent to farms or stored in freezers until they’re needed. At every stage they’re checked for the quality and concentration of the spores on them. People no longer need to put bamboo poles in the ocean and hope for luck.

Drew-Baker’s discovery was the first step toward the industrialization of a form of farming that seemingly couldn’t be industrialized. Segawa and countless later innovators in Japan turned an unpredictable crop into a sure harvest. The application of technology to farming, especially this kind of farming, has entirely changed the game. Even the people involved in nori production have changed. While most types of fishing and farming are losing workers, nori farming keeps attracting young, technologically minded people. Seventy years after the nori farming industry was seemingly destroyed, it is thriving more than it ever has before.

Thanks to her many discoveries, Drew-Baker’s career thrived, too. Despite being fired for getting married, she became the first elected president of the British Phycological Society in 1952. Today, Drew-Baker is known in Japan as “the mother of the sea,” and every year a festival is held in her honor in Uto City.

via Ars Technica
How an unpaid UK researcher saved the Japanese seaweed industry

Incredibles 2 (Teaser)

Incredibles 2 (Teaser)

Link

It’s been over 13 years, but Bob Parr and his super-powered family are coming back to the big screen. From the looks of the teaser, it’s Baby Jack-Jack’s time to shine. And unless one of his powers is slowing time, it takes place shortly after the original. Premieres 6/15/18.

via The Awesomer
Incredibles 2 (Teaser)

Top 10 Bolt Action Rifles Ever Made [Video]

Top 10 Bolt Action Rifles Ever Made [Video]

From battle to hunting to home defense, there may be no more versatile and useful firearm ever made that the accurate, reliable bolt action rifle. Rugged, reliable and easy to maintain, a good bolt gun lets a shooter reach out and touch anything  from a can on a fencepost at 25 yards to an enemy insurgent a mile away.

It took some careful consideration, but we managed to come up with our list of the top 10 bolt action rifles every produced. Did we miss anything?

via The Truth About Guns
Top 10 Bolt Action Rifles Ever Made [Video]

Your Roomba’s Also a Half-Decent Nanny

GIF

Need to run downstairs to fetch the laundry? Or maybe there’s a phone call you just have to take? Life with a baby can make even the smallest chores feel like a herculean task if you don’t have a nanny. But it turns out, if you keep your floors clean using a robot, maybe you do have a nanny and just didn’t realize it.

The mileage on this new parent lifehack will vary depending on how comfortable your child is with being dragged around the house on an automaton. But this infant seems suitably entertained and comforted by a Roomba going about its cleaning routine. Any robovac large enough to plop a child onto can serve as a temporary nanny in a pinch, just be careful of loose clothing, and children protective services eventually banging on your door.

[YouTube via Geekologie]

via Gizmodo
Your Roomba’s Also a Half-Decent Nanny

The Forest Awakens with These Animal Stormtrooper Helmets

“The New Order project came from a doodle,” says designer William Kang. He started with the rhino, and, since he likes to work in threes, added two other pachyderms: an elephant and a hippo. While Kang has done work in fashion, furniture, housewares, consumer electronics, and more, Blank William was a project he wanted to develop that he could have complete ownership of. Plus, he wanted a way to celebrate the release of The Force Awakens.

Kang uses a fluid process, working from sketches to multiple CAD packages to quick renders and back again, which allows him to progress toward a finished piece while still being able to backpedal and tweak details.

To make the physical sculpture, Kang worked with his fabricator friend Vince Su. They make silicone molds from 3D-printed parts, then mold wax prototypes that they dip into a ceramic slurry, reinforced with refractory sand. They then use the lost wax method and pour liquid metal into the mold. The helmets are stainless steel painted with an automotive finish, and they’re supported with a metal stem fixed into a marble block. Each helmet takes a couple of months to make.

Kang says his interests jump from design and art to tech, fashion, pop culture, politics, science, and whatever else grabs his attention. He draws inspiration from everywhere, so he says the hardest part of his process is settling on an idea, as well as the communication and marketing.

 

via MAKE Magazine
The Forest Awakens with These Animal Stormtrooper Helmets

The First Trailer For Deadpool 2 Is Hidden in a Bizarre Tribute to Bob Ross

GIF

Our first look at Deadpool 2 in action is finally here. But you’re going to have to get through a totally weird, and pretty hilarious, skit to get to it.

Ryan Reynolds has just dropped the first footage from Deadpool 2, but at first you might not realize it. Because the video starts—and goes on for an alarming amount of time—as an extended skit where Reynolds, in character as Deadpool, is… in character as beloved art icon Bob Ross?

Yeah, this is the way to do it. The whole skit is a retro delight, but the trailer itself is all brief snippets of what we can expect from the movie. There’s our first brief look at Zazie Beetz’s Domino, a new look for Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Wade smashing his way through a car,and actually no Cable… but there are guns. Lots of guns, naturally. For added hilarity, here is Fox’s new synopsis for the film:

After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Mayberry’s hottest bartender while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavor – finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World’s Best Lover.

I swear to god, it’s real. Deadpool 2 drops June 1, 2018.

via Gizmodo
The First Trailer For Deadpool 2 Is Hidden in a Bizarre Tribute to Bob Ross

Smith & Wesson’s M&P 22 Compact is the New Kit Gun 2.0

Tom is compelled to update his Kit Gun to the Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact Pistol, but why does it need a silencer?

This is my pick for the perfect Kit Gun 2.0 - the Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact.
This is my pick for the perfect Kit Gun 2.0 – the Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact.
Tom McHale
Tom McHale

USA –-(Ammoland.com)- When I got into this whole shooting thing, I frequently read mentions of things called “kit guns” in the established gun magazines. Usually in articles written by guys older than me (and that’s saying something) the term “kit gun” referred to a small, portable, light revolver that was suitable for tucking into a backpack or fishing tackle box. You know, something to have on hand for… whatever.

The sage of the internet, Wikipedia, describes a kit gun this way:

“A kit gun is a small, lightweight handgun, usually but not always .22LR caliber, and generally but not necessarily a revolver, which is intended to be carried in a kit bag by campers, hunters, trappers, and fishermen.”

While walking my dogs, I got to thinking about what a kit gun is nowadays. Everything else has gone to updated versions like Web 2.0 and Gun Culture 2.0, so why not Kit Gun 2.0? When I thought about it this way, my ideal kit gun selection was easy. In fact, I didn’t even have to think about it because I’ve been using one exactly that way for the past couple of years. What is it?

Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact

Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact Pistol
Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact Pistol

Since we’re now in the 2.0 world, some things are different than the kit guns of Gun Culture B.C. First, while it’s perfectly suitable for tossing in a pack or tackle box, it’s certainly not limited to only those handy but rustic camping and Grizzly Adams applications. Second, it’s a bit decked out with some 2.0 modern technology. Third, while never a hard and fast rule for kit guns, this one isn’t a revolver — it’s a semi-automatic.

If you’re not familiar with the gun, it’s a scaled down .22LR pistol about the size of a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield. The M&P 22 Compact is 6.7 inches long compared to 6.1 for the Shield, but that’s because it’s got a longer 3.5-inch barrel. It’s lighter at 15.3 ounces compared to the 18.3-ounce Shield. This little single-action has an ambidextrous safety that’s positive — you can feel and hear the lock and unlock positions

BlackHawk Rimfire Suppressor Adapter 1/2X28 S&W M&P 22 Compact
BlackHawk Rimfire Suppressor Adapter 1/2X28 S&W M&P 22 Compact

unambiguously. The magazine release is reversible so if you’re a lefty just flip it to the other side and you’re good to go. The M&P 22 Compact comes with two 10-round magazines, and you can carry one in the chamber for a total of eleven. The sights are standard white dot – three of them. The rear is adjustable for windage and elevation. That’s handy not only to account for the wide variety of rimfire ammo out there but to deal with the point of impact shift if you add a suppressor.

Did I mention that the M&P 22 Compact comes with a threaded barrel? The threading is internal to the side so if you order the standard model you need to acquire a 3/8”x24 to 1/2”x28 adapter. You can also order another variant direct that includes the adapter. I kind of like the approach. If you’re not using a silencer, then there’s nothing sticking out the end of the slide to get caught on stuff in your kit.

The real joy of the M&P 22 Compact comes from all the things you can do with it. That’s what makes it a Kit Gun 2.0 in my book.

Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact Pistol , Perfect New Shooter Pistol

I keep my personal Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact Pistol geared up with a SilencerCo Sparrow Suppressor. At just five inches long and small enough not to obscure the sights, it makes a perfect “First Shots” gun. Even the most timid and fearful first-time shooter friends are guaranteed a smile and great experience. The pistol has a small enough grip to fit any hand, but it’s not so thin that we big-mitted folks have to do any finger gymnastics to work the trigger comfortably.

The best part of this for new shooter introduction is that the configuration allows them to focus entirely on technique and the satisfaction of making hits. With no recoil and no noise, it’s pure non-intimidating fun.

Almost a Pellet Gun – The Perfect House and Yard Pest Control Device

While I live in suburbia, we’re next to what savvy real-estate marketing people call “wetlands.” We call it a swamp. Whatever the proper description, that means we get random critters trying to cross our border into places like the partially-exposed garage downstairs.

The solution is simple math.

Aguila .22 Super Colibri + M&P 22 Compact + SilencerCo Sparrow suppressor + Crimson Trace Lightguard = 0 rodents.

In case you’re not familiar, the Aguila Super Colibri cartridges are .22 cases with primer only topped by a 20-grain lead bullet. With no powder charge, the primer bang drives that underweight projectile at 350 to 550 feet per second depending on which gun you use. It’s great for pistols because the short barrels won’t trap the bullet before it exits but be careful using it in rifles. There’s probably not enough juice to make the bullet come out of the fiery end. In this case, the combination of powder-less ammo and a silencer means that the resulting shot is so quiet that it actually removes ambient noise from the area 😉 . I think it’s like some kind of ammo anti-matter, but we’ll avoid the quantum physics discussion for now.

For this Kit Gun 2.0, Aguila Colibri ammo is the bomb.
For this Kit Gun 2.0, Aguila Colibri ammo is the bomb.

Oh, one more detail. Since the Colibris ammo is so low-powered by design, you’ll need to rack the slide for each shot. Think of it as built-in malfunction drills.

Cheap Training and Fun Plinking

Suppressed or not, this gun is a hoot. Whatever the configuration we’re talking about virtually non-existent recoil and low-noise. Add (relatively) cheap ammo, and we’re talking about a pistol you can use for practice and technique development to your heart’s content without breaking the bank. If you have kids, then you know how much a range visit can devour your wallet. “Dad, can I shoot 17 more magazines from the 45 before we leave?”

Whatever your “real” gun is, you can get valuable practice time with the Smith & Wesson M&P 22 Compact Pistol. After all, sight picture, target acquisition, transitions, and trigger technique are universal skills that easily translate to any other handgun.

Kit Gun 2.0 Entitlement

It’s the age of crayon therapy, fairness at all costs, and social justice warriors, I figure I’m entitled to a new generation of kit gun. As long as you agree with me, then you’re entitled too. Let’s meet soon so we can plan our strategy to get M&P 22 Compact reimbursement credits written into the next health care bill. If you don’t agree, then you’re obviously some type of kit gun-ogynist fascist pig, and you can bet I’ll be protesting your sorry butt as soon as I can find someone to pay me to do so.

About

Tom McHale is the author of the Practical Guides book series that guides new and experienced shooters alike in a fun, approachable, and practical way. His books are available in print and eBook format on Amazon. You can also find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

This post Smith & Wesson’s M&P 22 Compact is the New Kit Gun 2.0 appeared first on AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News .

via AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News
Smith & Wesson’s M&P 22 Compact is the New Kit Gun 2.0