Brain quick to adapt

Adult brain can change within seconds - MIT News Office

The human brain can adapt to changing demands even in adulthood, but MIT neuroscientists have now found evidence of it changing with unsuspected speed. Their findings suggest that the brain has a network of silent connections that underlie its plasticity. ...

Facebook grows as MySpace becomes a ghetto

San Francisco News - Researcher says white folks are fleeing MySpace for Facebook - page 1

Last week, a study showing that older folks have flocked to Facebook was all over the news. But word of an even more provocative trend waits in the wings: white flight from MySpace to Facebook.

That's according to self-styled social media pundit Danah Boyd, who earned a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's School of Information in 2008. After four years of quizzing teenagers across the country, she contends that white kids are more likely than their nonwhite counterparts to abandon MySpace for its rival, or to choose Facebook in the first place. MySpace has become the "'ghetto' of the digital landscape," she said in a talk at the recent annual conference of the Personal Democracy Forum, an organization that explores how technology influences politics.

She compared the exodus of whites from MySpace to Facebook to the exodus of white city-dwellers to the suburbs over the past 50 years. As Boyd (who is white, by the way) put it, "Many of us have habitually crossed the street to avoid what is seen as the riff-raff."

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Modern-day Robinson Crusoe, self-exiled, survives on an island for 300 days with 2 knives, and a baby pig for company

Man survives 300 days with knife, pig | The Daily Telegraph
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His island of choice was Tofua, a 64-square-kilometre volcanic isle home to nothing except "some pigs, lots of coconuts, a lake and tropical forest".

His luggage consisted of just a Swiss army knife, machete and a video camera to record his adventure for a documentary to be aired later this year.

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Steampunk set for the new Stargate Universe

Step Into Stargate Universe's Rickety Steampunk Gate Room - Stargate - io9

Barefoot is better

Ditch Your Shoes for Better Runs - Running Barefoot - Lifehacker
Some studies have shown that walking barefoot can ease your body's aches and pains, and we've already told you that expensive running shoes aren't a necessity; now Wired's throwing in their two cents with an explanation of how barefoot is better. ...

I've always said that barefoot is better.

New military robot to feed on biomass, including corpses

The Raw Story » New military robots ‘could feed on corpses’

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A Maryland company under contract with the Pentagon is developing a robot that can burn organic material and use collected debris as fuel -- including, but not limited to, things like sticks, grass, debris -- and dead bodies.
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More Steampunk Art

Dark Roasted Blend: Spectacular Steampunk Art Update, Part 2