(PG-13) Gary the stormtrooper takes his daughter to work, Anakin goes to his happy place, Pruneface dreams of having more screen time and more in this look back at the funniest Robot Chicken: Star Wars scenes.
via The Awesomer
Robot Chicken: Star Wars Top 10
Scientists Create Injectable Foam To Repair Degenerating Bones
Researchers in France have developed a self-setting foam that can repair defects in bones and assist growth. Eventually, this advanced biomaterial could be used to quickly regenerate bone growth and treat degenerative diseases such as osteoporosis.
Injectable calcium phosphate cements (CPCs) have been around for nearly a hundred years, and they’re frequently used in orthopedics and traumathology as bone substitutes during surgery. These biomaterials allow surgeons to fix and harden defective bones “in situ” with relative ease and flexibility. What’s more, they’re biocompatible, self-setting, and non-toxic.
But as James Urquhart reports at Chemistry World, scientists haven’t been able to introduce macroporosity into these materials, which means these injectable cements don’t have pores, or cavities, larger than 50 nanometers. This makes it difficult to treat bone degeneration, or to strengthen cancellous bone—a porous, flexible and spongy tissue that gets progressively weaker once osteoporosis sets in.
Now, Pierre Weiss and his colleagues at the University of Nantes have achieved an important breakthrough in this area. By applying a sophisticated hydrogen as a foaming agent to create air bubbles in the mixture, the researchers have created an effective macroporous, self-setting CPC. The results of their work appears in the latest edition of Acta Biomaterialia.
The key to the breakthrough was in applying a silanized hydrogel as a foaming agent. James Urquhart explains:
Previously, the team had attempted to improve the mechanical properties [0f] CPC by adding a Si-HPMC hydrogel. But during the process of preparing the Si-HPMC hydrogel with an acidic buffer using syringes – which lowers the pH of the solution causing it to self-cross link and gel – air bubbles appeared in the mixture and they were hard to remove. But Weiss’ postdocs Jingtao Zhang and Weizhen Liu wondered if this drawback might be useful for giving macroporosity to CPC and so they set out to develop a CPC foam.
The team made the foam by putting Si-HPMC and CPC solutions in separate syringes, and then pumping air into the CPC syringe. Both syringes were then joined by a connector and plunged to rapidly mix the solutions and air, which formed a homogenous foam.
‘We knew that both biomaterials are biocompatible separately but we didn’t know how the body would react with a combination of both,’ explains Weiss. To find an answer, and also to test the biofunctionality of the foam, they conducted preliminary in vivo tests by making tiny defects in the thigh bones of two live rabbits and injected the foam into the cavities.
Their follow-up tests showed that new bone did indeed form at the implant sites, and with no toxic effects. The researchers would like to use the foam to treat certain bone defects and diseases, so their next step will be to determine the proof of concept in animal models.
Read more at Chemistry World. And check out the study at Acta Biomaterialia: “A simple and effective approach to prepare injectable macroporous calcium phosphate cement for bone repair: Syringe-foaming using a viscous hydrophilic polymeric solution”.
Email the author at george@gizmodo.com and follow him at @dvorsky. Top image by Elsevier
via Gizmodo
Scientists Create Injectable Foam To Repair Degenerating Bones
Microsoft’s AI no longer listens to ‘Hey Cortana’ on Android
Less than two weeks after Microsoft introduced its hands-free AI helper, Cortana, to Android mobile devices, the company has yanked the feature from the US market. Users used to be able to say "Hey, Cortana" and then issue a command, just like "OK, Google" natively does for Google Now. However, the feature appears to be incompatible with Google’s voice recognition system and, in some cases, could make the phone unusable for commons tasks — like making phone calls.
As such, Microsoft updated the app on Sunday to disable Cortana’s voice activation. The company could well reinstate it once the interference issues are resolved but until then, the only way to talk to Microsoft’s robo-helper in the states for the time being is on a Windows Phone. The feature is, however, still active for non-US customers.
[Image Credit: FLickr]
Via: Win Beta
Source: Google Play
via Engadget
Microsoft’s AI no longer listens to ‘Hey Cortana’ on Android
Vivek Ranadive On How He’ll Invest UC’s $250 Million
Entrepreneur and Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive sat down with TechCrunch to discuss how he’ll be allocating the University of California’s $250 million investment. The venture fund will be used to invest in innovative “value-driven” startups, many stemming from the UC ecosystem. The University of California and its ten campuses have been granted more patents than… Read More
via TechCrunch
Vivek Ranadive On How He’ll Invest UC’s $250 Million
The Secret to the Perfect Homemade Egg McMuffin Clone: Steaming Your Egg
McDonald’s may be offering all day breakfast now, but it’s still cheaper to make your own Egg McMuffins at home. If you want your sandwich to look, feel, and taste like their version, however, it all comes down to how you cook the egg.
The texture and taste of eggs can vary wildly depending on how you cook them. To achieve true homemade Egg McMuffin perfection, Serious Eats’ J. Kenji Lopéz-Alt explains to First We Feast that the eggs are suppose to steam instead of fry:
Preheat a nonstick pan over medium-low. Spray with cooking spray or brush with olive oil. Take a biscuit cutter that’s about the same size as your English muffin… Brush or spray the cutter or can with oil and place in the center of the pan. Once it’s there, don’t slide it… this is metal on nonstick coating. Break the egg into a small bowl, then carefully pour it inside the cookie cutter. Pour water up into the pan outside the cutter, to about ½-inch high. Break the yolk with the back of a spoon and sprinkle lightly with salt. Then, cover the pan with a lid and let the egg cook for 4 to 5 minutes, until the yolk is cooked to your preference.
If you don’t have a round cookie cutter on hand, you can also use a mason jar ring, or remove the top and bottom of a tuna fish can (just be sure to wash it well before use). Now your eggs will have the same texture and pristine whiteness you get at the restaurant. You can find more homemade Egg McMuffin tips at the link below.
The Complete Guide to Making an Egg McMuffin Clone at Home | First We Feast
Photo by Håkan Dahlström.
via Lifehacker
The Secret to the Perfect Homemade Egg McMuffin Clone: Steaming Your Egg
The Galactic Civil War
The Washington Post made a recap of Star Wars in the style of Ken Burns’ documentary The Civil War. But YouTuber OneNerdShow already had the exact same idea and he executed it way better too.
via The Awesomer
The Galactic Civil War
NetSpot Maps Your Wi-Fi Network and Diagnoses Signal Problems for Free
OS X: NetSpot is a free utility that makes it easy to map out your wireless network, do a site survey if you have a particularly large one to manage, and to visualize where signal is strong and weak, and what might be getting in the way.
We’ve mentioned NetSpot before, but the app has come a long way since then. For one, the app fully supports Wireless AC routers and access points, makes it easy to manage those access points if you want, and includes a channel and strength analyzer that can run in the background. One click and you can see how strong your network is, and watch it in real time as you move across your house or apartment, or between rooms.
The app also builds a live heatmap of your network (or the network you’re connected to—you don’t have to use it on yours, obviously) so you can see the strong and weak points, ideal if you’re somewhere where the network is spotty, or you can’t pinpoint where the access points are physically located, but you are free to move around. You also get built-in speed tests, support for multiple networks so you can see how your Wi-Fi and your neighbor’s overlap (and if there’s channel interference), and more.
NetSpot is completely free, but there are professional versions with more features for network administrators or companies looking to outfit their admins with solid survey tools. You can read the differences here, but the free version will be fine for most people. Hit the link below to check it out.
via Lifehacker
NetSpot Maps Your Wi-Fi Network and Diagnoses Signal Problems for Free
Dilbert 2015-12-20
There Are Twelve Different Kinds of Rainbows
The science of rainbows: it’s something we’re all taught in grade school. Airborne water droplets act like little prisms, bending and splitting light. Mix enough water and sunshine, and you get a brilliant bow of color.
The reality is quite a bit more complicated.
Some rainbows have a second, inverted bow, caused by the reflection of light off the primary. Occasionally, we’ll see a darker band of sky between the two arcs. Sometimes, we even witness bright fringes—so called “supernumerary bows”—on the top and bottom of the rainbow.
And when the sun draws low in the sky, rainbows start to lose colors. As light travels a longer distance through the atmosphere to reach our eyes, the shorter wavelengths get scattered away. Eventually, we’re left with nothing but a lovely red smear.
A brilliant double rainbow after a rainstorm. Image via Peggy/Flickr
For decades, rainbows have been classified in textbooks based on the average size of their water droplets. But water droplet size alone can’t explain the diversity of rainbows we see in nature.
By sorting hundreds of pictures of rainbows based on the visibility of the six colors and the presence of accessory bands, a team of atmospheric scientists has now come up with 12 different classes—including a rainbow that lacks green, a red-and-blue rainbow, a yellow and orange/red rainbow, and a monochromatic red. They presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union meeting this week.
So, if you’re ever lucky enough to spot a strange, partially-colored rainbow, there’s now a classification scheme that’ll tell you exactly what’s going on. Diffuse red rainbows, for instance, only occur near sunrise or sunset, when the sky is filled with tiny water droplets.
As with many other natural phenomena, the truth about rainbows is turning out to be far more beautiful than we imagined.
Follow the author @themadstone
Top: Rainbow at sunset, via Steve Jurvetson / Flickr
Darth Vader – The Photographers’ WORST Client!
In Karl Taylor’s last video, he encounters a troubling client just in time for the premiere of The Force Awakens. Copyright/DMCA Notice: The RSS entry was originally published on Photography Bay. RSSID#794326
via Photography Bay
Darth Vader – The Photographers’ WORST Client!