Futurist Thomas Frey: Michael Migliozzi and Brian Flatow started a website called BuyaBeerCompany.com in November 2009 who’s lofty goal was to buy the ailing century old Pabst Blue Ribbon beer company. Working to match the $300 million sale price, in less than two years the pair had attracted over 5 million investors pledging upwards of $280 million, with an average pledge of $40.
Crowdfunding: 23 Unusual Ways it May be Applied
Working more than 11 hours a day linked to depression
Women, young people, and those on low pay with moderate alcohol consumption most at risk.
Workers who spend long hours at the office are more than twice as likely to develop depression as those who do a standard day, according to a study.
Artist Scott Garner’s not so still “Still Life”
“Still Life”
“Still Life” by artist Scott Garner’s has all the trappings of a traditional still life painting. The lighting is intriguing, the fruit artfully arranged, a knife resting beneath a blue patterned vase adds a slight menacing edge to the image. (video)
Twitter to censor tweets on a country-by-country basis
Some Twitter users are planning to go all of Saturday without tweeting to show their displeasure.
There are fears of Twitter censorship among bloggers and activists from China, the Middle East and Latin America as new Twitter policies could allow governments to censor messages, stifling free expression.
It’s the year of social media for Super Bowl ads
Advertisers are falling over themselves to get their ads out on YouTube or as part of online contests, like Volkswagen has done this year.
A big social event every year is the Super Bowl. During this year’s battle pitting the New York Giants against the New England Patriots, getting social will happen on screens and the sofa. (video)
Yummy? Scratch ‘n sniff raspberry scented jeans
They may look like other jeans, but these smell different.
These jeans look like any other pair of denim you’d see on a fashionable twentysomething. Dark, slim fit and cut perfectly, heck, I wouldn’t mind buying these myself. But unlike other jeans, this pair is made with scratch ‘n sniff raspberry scented denim. Yes. Scratch and sniff. On your freaking jeans! This is awesome…
LapGuard offers radiation shielding technology
Prevent leg burn and radiation damage with LapGuard.
By Deb Frey
Home births in the U.S. rise by 30%
Home births are still rare in the United States but it is a growing trend.
Jessica Wilcox thinks her in-laws still view her ideas about childbirth as kind of out there, but it’s hard to argue with success: In the last five years or so, Wilcox has given birth to two boys and two girls — each weighing more than 10 pounds — at her northern Virginia home. And she hopes to do it again one or two more times.
iPad can be a pain in the neck: study
Harvard study finds the iPad is putting a lot of strain on the neck muscles.
A record breaking 15.43 million iPads have been sold by Apple in the last three months of 2011, which means a lot of people are starting to use tablet computers. And with last week’s news that Apple is planning to bring textbooks to the iPad — well, that’s a lot more people who may start to use tablets, too.
Death rate from heart attacks in England drop in half
Heart attack deaths in England are half the 2002 level.
The death rate from heart attacks in England has dropped by half in the last decade, according to British researchers.
Health of kids predicts parents’ future heart disease: study
Study found kids’ weight, cholesterol and blood pressure helped predict the odds of a parent developing heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes over the next three decades.
When children have high cholesterol or blood pressure, their parents may have increased risks of diabetes and heart disease down the road, according to a new study.
Evaporative snowfalls
Localized snowfall.
If your choices were fog, foam or snow, wouldn’t snow be a welcome change from the others?
In the early 1990’s, Francisco Guerra started making snow for his magic act. Within a few years, special events, movies, and theme parks wanted to use this unique effect to create magical snowfall.
What is amazing about this effect is that the snow never accumulates. It evaporates within 90 seconds and leaves no residue. This biodegradable, non-toxic, non-slip, flame retardant effect can be performed indoors as well as outdoors, from a small dance floor to a theme park. Global Special Effects is known as the inventor of evaporative snow™…
Modified turntable reads tree-rings as music
Now you can listen to trees literally.
Aside from the gentle rustling of leaves in the breeze, or the creaking of a bough in a winter gale, a tree’s character may best be described as ‘the strong and silent type’ — but, as so often is the case with such personalities, they just might have the most hauntingly beautiful stories to tell.
For nearly a century, dendrochronologists have practiced reading tree-rings for clues about the lives of trees. And though the field of study has helped immensely to shed light on historic growth cycles for scientists, it’s all been rather dry and clinical. But now, thanks to a special turntable designed to read tree-rings like tracks on an LP, a tree’s biography can now actually be heard as its discography…
(video after jump)
Scientists create first atomic X-ray laser
A powerful X-ray laser pulse from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source comes up from the lower-left corner (shown as green) and hits a neon atom (center). This intense incoming light energizes an electron from an inner orbit (or shell) closest to the neon nucleus (center, brown), knocking it totally out of the atom (upper-left, foreground). In some cases, an outer electron will drop down into the vacated inner orbit (orange starburst near the nucleus) and release a short-wavelength, high-energy (i.e. “hard”) X-ray photon of a specific wavelength (energy/color) (shown as yellow light heading out from the atom to the upper right along with the larger, green LCLS light).
Scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created the shortest, purest X-ray laser pulses ever achieved, fulfilling a 45-year-old prediction and opening the door to a new range of scientific discovery.
The researchers, reporting in Nature, aimed SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at a capsule of neon gas, setting off an avalanche of X-ray emissions to create the world’s first “atomic X-ray laser.”
“X-rays give us a penetrating view into the world of atoms and molecules,” said physicist Nina Rohringer, who led the research. A group leader at the Max Planck Society’s Advanced Study Group in Hamburg, Germany, Rohringer collaborated with researchers from SLAC, DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Colorado State University…
The end of résumés
Social media is shredding the traditional organized list of accomplishments.
It used to be that composing a quality résumé and wearing pants to a job interview were critical to a successful job hunt. But that’s changing. Well, one of them is. Hiring managers are increasingly looking toward web presence to gauge what they have to offer…


























