Kurt Starnes

"This isn't your first close-up of another planet's biosphere... it's actually the Maldives islands on Earth, as viewed from the International Space Station. A couple of ISS astronauts have been twittering amazing pictures of our planet." - Kurt Starnes

"Darwin had a big one. As did Plato and Aristotle. Pythagoras most certainly had one, a long one judging from his statue. Leonardo da Vinci’s grew to illustrious lengths later in life. So why, if all these famous scientists had beards to stroke when being clever and contemplative, is sporting facial hair in the lab a big no-no? Well, it appears that facial hair provides a massive substrate on which bacteria can frolic and play. So much so that a bearded man wearing a face mask sheds significantly much more bacteria than a non-bearded man or woman. In fact the risk posed by the facial hair bacterial fallout is such that the authors of the February 2000 paper in Anaesthesia end their abstract with this line: Bearded males may also consider removing their beards. So it appears that a responsible doctor in this day and age should be sure to shave." - Kurt Starnes

"The Velozzi Supercar will be powered by a 770-horsepower AC-induction electric motor charged by an on-board Capstone C65 microturbine. The supercar is designed to accelerate from 0-60mph in just three seconds and reach a top speed of over 200 mph, according to Velozzi." - Kurt Starnes

Tipped to this story by harmizan: http://ff.im/fqfSP - Kurt Starnes

"Here is another physics experiment that contains a spooky resemblance to a human face, sent to us by David Fairhurst, a physicist at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. The ugly-looking globular mound is a droplet of polymer solution, the kind of substance you might find in the ink cartridges of your printer. As the solution began to dry, Fairhurst noticed a number of small “spherulites” begin to crystallise on the droplet surface revealing what appears to be a tiny human face." - Kurt Starnes

Did this knock out FF briefly? - Kurt Starnes

I think it was more aversion. The people reacting don't want to fight them - just not have them anywhere nearby. - Micah

pppffft! Micah has been drinking or something. ;) - Josh Haley

GIVE THEM TO ME - Akiva

I can't believe it's me telling Louis that - Jesse Stay

"Thomas Reh and colleagues at the University of Washington, in Seattle, have generated light-sensing retinal cells, called photoreceptors, from adult human skin cells. They then transplanted the cells into a mouse retina, showing that the photoreceptors integrated normally into the surrounding tissue. This technological feat raises hopes for the development of treatments for retinal diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration, which cause visual impairment or blindness in millions of people in the U.S." - Kurt Starnes

From my friend Marie Luther -- She posted this to my FB Wall as Kermit is my doppelgänger. - Kurt Starnes

I've also noticed a couple of similarly voiced posts on WSJ's FB Page, FWIW. I think these folks need to be careful as the faces of their brands on the big social networks. - Kurt Starnes

"Individuals at extremely high risk of developing psychosis appear less likely to develop psychotic disorders following a 12-week course of fish oil capsules containing long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals." - Kurt Starnes

"Could humans one day walk on walls, like Spider-Man? A palm-sized device invented at Cornell that uses water surface tension as an adhesive bond just might make it possible." - Kurt Starnes

"Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products." - Kurt Starnes

"Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word "newspaper," of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automatically on every hour; even if one read only the English versions, one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorbing the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites." - Kurt Starnes

A blog is a lot like a baby. You can’t really express to someone who doesn’t have one what it’s like and, despite all of the reference material about how to nurture one, you don’t really begin to figure it out until you’ve had one for a while. - Kurt Starnes

Test using Glenn Slaven's FriendFeed plug-in for Wordpress. - Kurt Starnes

Awesome - it works! :-> Thanks Glenn! - Kurt Starnes