31 October 2012

Ken Langone ~ NYU's Donor Shares Lessons...

Fascinating and blunt Bloomberg interview with Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, donor to NYU and namesake of (and recent patient in) the evacuated medical center...

Squishy Circuits ~ Kids Electronics w/ Play Dough

Professor AnnMarie Thomas and students make Squishy Circuits...
"...to design tools and activities which allow kids of all ages to create circuits and explore electronics using play dough."
Check out her TED talk! (Plus see MakerEd)

30 October 2012

Evacuation Drills ~ Levy on Practicing Responses

Perhaps one of the most distressing and lives-at-risk elements of Superstorm Sandy was the NYU Langone hospital emergency evacuation of ~200 patients (including 20 babies and 45 critical care patients) after multiple power systems failed. MIT alum, healthcare sector leader, and patient advocate Paul Levy posts about how evacuation practice can help and specifically spotlights his own hospital's drill in their neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)...
"An important aspect of hospital operations is to prepare for the unexpected, a catastrophe that can cause a major disruption to patient care. All hospitals plan for such things, [plus we] drill."
Practice makes perfect and the NYU team (and their NYPD, FD, and ER brethren) stayed cool and dealt magnificently with a very severe situation. See more in David Goodman and Colin Moynihan's NYTimes piece Patient Evac From City Medical Center After Power Failure...
P.S. See here ABC report afterwards... P.P.S. CNN's Cooper interviews baby-carrying nurse Margot Condon...

Red Spider Nebula ~ NASA Spots Galactic Gases

NASA APOD spots Red Spider Planetary Nebula...

29 October 2012

Imaging Sandy ~ NASA/NOAA Timelapse, Plus...

NASA/NOAA GOES-14 satellite imagery from 35,800 km up...
"Light from the changing angles of the sun highlight the structure of the clouds. [...] The "super rapid scan" images -- one every minute from 7:15 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. EDT -- reveal details of the storm's motion. Animation by Kevin Ward with images from NOAA and University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies."
And here gCaptain posts Sandy Wave Height buoy data...
The Atlantic spotlights Wind Map...
The Atlantic's John Metcalfe spots NASA TRMM imaging of the Eye...
NYTimes Lower Manhattan flood-guesstimap...

Beaufort Scale ~ Howtoons Visualizes Windforce!

Superstorm Sandy's blowing hard even here in Cambridge, MA several hundred klicks north of the Eye. Check out this handy Howtoons guide to the Beaufort windforce scale...

Exporting MIT ~ TCHE on Quiet Global Strategy

Karin Fischer writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education about Exporting MIT ~ MIT Adopts a Quiet Global Strategy...
"Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was in the university-building business. [...] More than a generation later, MIT is at it again. [...] MIT is not stamping its name on campuses overseas. Instead it has seemed content to be a less-showy, largely silent partner in its international ventures. [...] these upstart institutions are being built in the spirit of MIT's motto, Mens et Manus, or Mind and Hand. They are meant to have real-world impact. [In the words of our new President...] "We cannot replicate MIT anywhere else," says Mr. Reif, a former provost and longtime faculty member. "It took us 150 years to get what we've got."
It's a fascinating piece, missing as much as it reveals, including essential history and failures. But read the whole thing!

28 October 2012

Rise of Drones ~ Journeyman on Flying Robots

UD spots Journeyman's Rise of the Machines... Plus here's Journeyman's Attack of the Drones... Finally, on related note, here's Robot Wars...

Double Robotics ~ iPad x Segway Y-C Alumco...

Thanks to MIT's Charles Z Guan for spotlighting Double Robotics...

Hexaflexamexagon ~ Vi Hart's Food Mathemagic!

Building upon her previous Hexaflexagon demo, we now can taste the goodness with Vi Hart sharing Hexaflexamexagon tortilla treats;-) Thanks to MissC for spotting this food mathemagic!

Obama Phones ~ US Subsidizes Lifeline Mobiles

CNNMoney reports The real story behind free 'Obama phones'...
"17-million Americans get subsidized phone service through the Lifeline program and the world's richest man is benefiting."

NYC Evac Map ~ Warning Zones for Sandy...

NYTimes interactive on NYC Hurricane Evacuation Zones...

Urbanizing India ~ Economist Spots Trendscape

The Economist spotlights India's Urban Future...

Publish What You Pay ~ Transparent Extractions

Very compelling to see The Guardian's global development spotlight on Ali Idrissa's campaigning with Publish What You Pay in Niger for greater awareness and transparency in resource extraction industries...
"Nigeriens should not need help from rich countries to combat natural disasters and poverty: 'If we benefited from our resources, we would no longer need to do that.' Niger's uranium, gold and oil are not used to help alleviate poverty, he argues. Instead, there is exploitation, including child labour and exposure to cyanide."

27 October 2012

Filming Cheetah ~ NatGeo's SloMo of Fast Cat!

National Geographic filmed the world's fastest cat with killer cameras and precision rig! See also feature article, Frans Lanting's photos, and Big Cats Initiative.

Swarm Robots ~ Cooperative Assembly Tasks...

UD spots Swarm Robots cooperating on "Spatially Targeted Communication and Self-Assembly", a project by Nithin Mathews, Anders Lyhne Christensen, Rehan O'Grady, and Marco Dorigo, from Universite Libre de Bruxelles and Instituto Universitario de Lisboa.

Superstorm Sandy ~ Tracking Emergent Weather

Interesting to see the emergence of this season's first stand-out weather event, what CNN is calling Superstorm Sandy...
"The biggest threat scenario involves the hurricane colliding with a cold front from the West, creating a "superstorm" that could stall over the Eastern seaboard for days. Residents [should] prepare for the possibility of a week or more without power."
NOAA forecasts possible paths...
P.S. See also Andrew Revkin's DotEarth commentary at NYTimes.
P.P.S. Check out NYTimes coverage of Dying Satellites...

26 October 2012

Mao's Millionaire Minions ~ Censored NYTimes...

China's dictatorial overlords have censored the NYTimes article by David Barboza exposing the scandalous Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader. Witness Mao's millionaire minions enormous corruption and abuse of power in this infographic on the Wen Family Empire...
P.S. See also Economist piece on China's ruling families, a Torrent of Scandals.

Visual Strategies ~ Frankel Shares Key Science

MIT's David Chandler spotlights Felice Frankel's Visual Strategies book on how How to communicate science visually...

23 October 2012

bandu ~ Neumitra's Biofeedback Watch & App

Excellent to see MIT Neurotechnology Ventures alumco Neumitra launch their bandu biofeedback watch and app via indiegogo! Support them!

20 October 2012

Real MBTA ~ Geographically Correct Route Map

MapPorn spots Geographically Correct MBTA...

Logos Hope ~ Floating Bookstore & Reading Ship

I've written before about the hospital ship African Mercy, and Shell's Prelude FLNG, NYC's prison barge, and even the Blueseed visa-free startup ship -- which are all great examples of flexible, floating infrastructure. Thanks now to UD for spotting the Logos Hope...
"...the world’s largest floating bookstores. The Logos Hope is operated by a German charity organization, and its mission is to take books, education, and community outreach around the world. [...] Part of the ship’s mission is to make low-cost books available in parts of the world where books are hard to come by–this includes not only selling books below retail prices, but also establishing libraries in local schools, children’s homes, and other community organization wherever the Logos Hope sails. In addition to book-distribution, the Logos Hope hosts educational programming about fitness, AIDS prevention, and a variety of other subjects. Since it set sail in 2004, the Logos Hope has distributed more than 3 million books and had more than 2.5 million visitors onboard."

14 October 2012

Fading Faith ~ On God's Increasing Irrelevance...

The WSJ Numbers Guy Carl Bialik notes that Tracking Religious Trends Takes a Leap of Faith...
"Pollsters are turning to religion just as more Americans are losing theirs. In the past decade, the number of people asked in surveys about their religious identities, beliefs and practices has risen sharply, resulting in a wealth of new data on how many Americans belong to each of the world's religions, or to none."

Election Mapping ~ Barron's on US Vote Calculus

Barron's spotlights demographer John Morgan's map of what he thinks will happen in the 2012 US election...
P.S. And here's the actual results posted on WSJ on Wed 7 Nov 2012...

Spillover Cities ~ Economist on Scale Dynamics

The Economist notes that America’s big cities are larger than Europe’s. That has important economic consequences...
"Differences in metropolitan populations may help explain gaps in productivity and incomes. Western Europe’s per-person GDP is 72% of America’s, on a purchasing-power-parity basis. A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute, the consultancy’s research arm, reckons that some three-quarters of this gap can be chalked up to Europe’s relatively diminutive cities. [...] Cities today have a productivity advantage for different reasons, to do with ideas rather than costs. When one firm in a city comes up with a new technique, product or design, nearby firms may quickly build on it or hire its creator. One firm’s innovation boosts its own productivity but also spills over to other businesses. Companies that prefer seclusion cut themselves off from these "knowledge spillovers."

Diverse Mombasa ~ Mwachiro on Kenyan Portcity

The BBC's Kevin Mwachiro's report on Mombasa: One Square Mile of Kenya spotlights the historic waves and current diversity of culture and connectedness in this key East African portcity...
"... there are challenges -- modernity, commerce, and the politics of Kenya and neighbouring countries -- all lapping at the shores of this island city. Portugal, Oman, India and Britain all left their mark in the past. Today, Somalia is very much part of the cultural mix. Mombasa is now a safe haven for many Somalis leaving behind decades of fighting in their native land. [But one example of the positives is gathering in] a funfair in the centre of the city to celebrate the end of Ramadan. The place was full of families -- Muslim, Christian and Hindum -- all having fun together. That is the picture of Mombasa that sticks in my mind. A bustling place, a bit ramshackle in parts, with the beautifully restored areas of the Old Town, and others in dire need of a good spring clean. Most importantly, a place marked by the tolerance of its people, and a strong sense of what it means to be from here."

07 October 2012

SimCity E3 ~ Latest Urban Planning Game Soon!

Nice piece by Ariel Schwartz in Fast Co.Exist noting that The New SimCity Will Turn You Into An Urban Planning Nut...
"SimCity, a city-building simulation series that was first released in 1989, has always been a virtual sandbox for aspiring urban planners, with a seemingly endless array of options -- you could lay down roads; zone houses, industrial complexes, and commercial real estate; put up nuclear power plants; adjust taxation; and more. In the end, you could destroy your whole empire with a UFO or a well-placed asteroid strike. The newest version of SimCity, set to be released in February 2013, retains most of the game’s previous elements (including its addictive quality) while bringing a whole new level of complexity to the tilt-shift inspired world."

Printed Optics ~ Disney's 3DP Light Interactives

Cool Disney Research work on Printed Optics for photonic action! Thanks to eyeNetra's Vitor Pamplona for spotting this!

Superhuman ~ BBC Spotlights Prosthetics as Art

BBC spotlights superhumanity asking about Prosthetics as Art...
"The rock musician, actor and performance artist Mat Fraser looks at how prosthetics have been used to improve, adapt and augment human performance."

SynthCam ~ Levoy's Clever Mobile Camera App

Thanks to MIT Media Lab colleague Ramesh Raskar for spotlighting Stanford professor Mark Levoy's SynthCam...

03 October 2012

Container Pop-Ups ~ Rapid Rehersal Storefronts

I'm fascinated by containerized solutions generally, but I especially have pop-up retail storefronts on the mind right now.  Things like what we've seen Boxman Studios do. We need to try these out on currently crappy parking lots in Kendall Square -- MIT's lots of ugly underused space should get this temporary, design-rehersal treatment!

3Gear Gesturizer ~ Kinect for Hi-Res Handwaving

MIT TR spots 3Gear's Kinect-mod hi-res gesturizer venture...

Hexaflexagons ~ Vi Hart's New Foldorgamathism

Thanks to MissC for spotting Vi Hart's Hexaflexagons!

02 October 2012

Lunar Tricks ~ Adrian Limani's Clever Moonshots!

DailyMail delivers lunar humor with Adrian Limani's moonshots!-)

Sky Chefs ~ Tasty Food Prep on Industrial Scale!

CNN spotlights Restaurant Food Cooked on an Industrial Scale... This is part of larger series on Frankfurt Airport (including some really stellar tilt-shift timelapse!-)...

R&D Megafunds ~ Novel Securitization Financing

Fascinating piece just published in Nature Biotechnology by our MIT colleagues Jose-Maria Fernandez, Roger Stein and Andrew Lo on Commercializing biomedical research through securitization techniques. They propose RIBOs -- Research & Innovation Backed Obligations -- or R&D megafunds...
"...a financial structure in which a large number of biomedical programs at various stages of development are funded by a single entity to substantially reduce the portfolio’s risk. The portfolio entity can finance its activities by issuing debt, a critical advantage because a much larger pool of capital is available for investment in debt versus equity. By employing financial engineering techniques such as securitization, it can raise even greater amounts of more-patient capital."
To exemplify this, they propose a cancer megafund. Read the paper for more details, but these illustrate flows...