News

Robin> Yes, soon we will start praising those students who refuse to do their homework or show any interest in their lessons... and punishing those who do is not too far in the future either!


Artwork 'changes to suit moods'

Artwork that changes to suit a viewer's mood has been created by scientists.
The technology, developed by a UK/US team, enables a digital painting to recognise a person's emotional state and respond accordingly.

Angry faces prompt an image with darker colours, applied in violent brush stokes; a happier person will see more vibrant shades, subtly daubed.

The team said they hope it would provide an interactive experience for art lovers.

The technology, designed by scientists at the University of Bath and Boston University, renders any digital photograph to look like a painting.

As the artwork is viewed, a webcam positioned just above the picture captures the observer's face, allowing it to be analysed by a computer program.

Checking for key facial features, such as the curl of the mouth, brow furrow and the openness of the eyes, the program can work out the apparent emotional state of the viewer.

And in real time, the digital image responds to best suit the mood of the watcher.

Picture psychology

Researcher Dr John Collomosse, from the Computer Science Department at the University of Bath, said the team looked at image psychology to ascertain how the variations should correspond to emotional states.

The image can alter the look of the brushstrokes, background and colours to match disposition.

"This results in a digital canvas that smoothly varies its colours and style, and provides a novel interactive artistic experience," he added.

He said the drive for the project had arisen from research into producing synthetic artwork from photos and videos.

He said: "There are a lot of artworks that haven't made it through to end users because they are fiddly to control - there are a lot of parameters that need to be set.

"With this, a viewer can use facial expression to set the parameters.

"I think it is a really exciting area - digital photography has really taken off, and there is a market emerging for tools to manage and manipulate digital photos."

The work was recently presented at the Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering conference that took place in Annecy, France.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl...7604/img/1.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5242060.stm

Yes, that's my worry -- "Stop overachieving!! You're making the other students feel bad!! Off to the headmaster's office with you!!"

Beams reveal Archimedes' hidden writings

SAN FRANCISCO - Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers.

Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works.

The X-rays, generated by a particle accelerator, cause tiny amounts of iron left by the original ink to glow without harming the delicate goatskin parchment.

"We are gaining new insights into one of the founding fathers of western science," said William Noel, curator of manuscripts at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, which organized the effort. "It is the most difficult imaging challenge on any medieval document because the book is in such terrible condition."

Following a successful trial run last year, Stanford researchers invited X-ray scientists, rare document collectors and classics scholars to take part in the 11-day project.

It takes about 12 hours to scan one page using an X-ray beam about the size of a human hair, and researchers expect to decipher up to 15 pages that resisted modern imaging techniques. After each new page is decoded, it is posted online for the public to see.

On Friday, members of the public watched the decoding process via a live Web cast arranged by the San Francisco Exploratorium.

"We are focusing on the most difficult pages where the scholars haven't been able to read the texts," said Uwe Bergmann, the Stanford physicist heading the project.

Born in the 3rd century B.C., Archimedes is considered one of ancient Greece's greatest mathematicians, perhaps best known for discovering the principle of buoyancy while taking a bath.

The 174-page manuscript, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest, contains the only copies of treatises on flotation, gravity and mathematics. Scholars believe a scribe copied them onto the goatskin parchment from the original Greek scrolls.

Three centuries later, a monk scrubbed off the Archimedes text and used the parchment to write prayers at a time when the Greek mathematician's work was less appreciated. In the early 20th century, forgers tried to boost the manuscript's value by painting religious imagery on some of the pages.

In 1998, an anonymous private collector paid $2 million for the manuscript at an auction, then loaned it to the Walter Arts Museum for safekeeping and study.

Over the past eight years, researchers have used ultraviolet and infrared filters, as well as digital cameras and processing techniques, to reveal most of the buried text, but some pages were still unreadable.

"We will never recover all of it," Noel said. "We are just getting as much as we can, and we are going to the ends of the earth to get it."

source

I think I remember someone bringing up something similar to this (Logos, perhaps?) . . .

CDC probes bizarre Morgellons condition

ATLANTA - Imagine your body pocked by erupting sores. The sensation of little bugs crawling all over you. And worst of all, mysterious red and blue fibers sprouting from your skin.

It may sound like a macabre science fiction movie, but a growing legion of Americans say they suffer from this condition. And now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating.

Some doctors dismiss these patients as delusional. But the condition — called Morgellons — has caused a small frenzy on the Internet, with hundreds of people pleading for help.

"Sometimes the government doesn't want to panic people until they can figure out a definitive cause," said Pat Boddie, a 62-year-old Alabama woman who said she's had Morgellons for 14 years.

"They're trying to figure out if this is going to be an epidemic. I hate to tell them, but it already is," she said.

The CDC has been receiving as many as 20 calls a day from self-diagnosed Morgellons patients. The agency has been urged to investigate by, among others, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record) of California.

"We're going into this with an open mind," said Dan Rutz, spokesman for a CDC Morgellons task force that began meeting in June.

But so far there is no evidence of an infectious agent, and health officials say there is not yet enough evidence even to call it a disease.

People claiming to have Morgellons report a wide variety of symptoms, ranging from joint pain to irregular bowel movements. But most describe crawling sensations along the skin, sores, fatigue, "brain fog," and the appearance of small or microscopic fibers on or under the skin.

Some say they've suffered for decades, but the syndrome did not get a name until 2002, when the name "Morgellons" (pronounced mor-GELL-uns) was chosen by Mary Leitao. The South Carolina woman, who said her son suffers from the condition, founded the Morgellons Research Foundation.

She found the name in a 1674 medical paper that described a condition called Morgellons, with symptoms somewhat like her son's. So she began using the name. "I never expected it to stick," she said.

Leitao's organization has become a leading source of information and research advocacy, but it too has become controversial.

Last week, at least three of the eight members of the organization resigned over disagreements with Leitao, the executive director, about how she's been running the foundation. One member — the board's chairman — sent a letter to the U.S.
Internal Revenue Service, saying Leitao had failed to produce requested financial records and he voiced suspicions of financial impropriety.

Another board member who resigned, Dr. Greg Smith, a Gainesville, Ga., pediatrician, had recently posted a donations-soliciting letter for the foundation on an Internet site frequented by Morgellons patients. Last week, he posted a retraction.

"I cannot in good faith ask anyone to contribute to the foundation," Smith wrote.

Leitao described the controversy as "a power struggle" and said she's done nothing illegal.

Also resigning from the organization was Randy Wymore, an Oklahoma State University assistant professor of pharmacology. He was the organization's director of research.

Wymore had initiated the relationship last year. But because of the in-fighting he said he decided to distance himself. "The research I'm doing is not affected by this," Wymore added.

Until the CDC task force, Wymore was seen as the most reputable scientist to research Morgellons, although he was trained in molecular biology, not clinical disease or fibrous materials.

He recruited two Oklahoma State faculty physicians. They tweezed fibers from beneath the skin of some Morgellons patients who visited the Oklahoma State Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa in February, Wymore said, and sent those samples to the Tulsa Police Department's forensic laboratory.

The police checked the samples against carpet and clothing fibers and other materials, and conducted chemical analyses and other tests. Nothing matched, said Mark Boese, the police lab's director.

"How it is being produced, I don't know," Boese said. He theorized the fibers could be produced by human hair follicles that somehow encapsulated pollutants processed by the body.

Some doctors believe Morgellons is produced by the mind, not the body.

"I think of Morgellons as a piece of a larger phenomenon — delusional parasitosis," said Dr. Annette Matthews, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

Delusional parasitosis is a psychosis in which sufferers believe they are infected with parasites. Often the patients have a real-life problem with scabies, lice, or some other tiny attackers, but then imagine they are continuing to plague them, Matthews said.

Asked about reports of multiple Morgellons cases within a family, Matthews said delusions are transmissible — the psychiatric term is 'folie a deux,' for instances in which people come to share a delusion.

Some people will biopsy themselves, or seek large quantities of antibiotics, herbal remedies, industrial bug killers and other expensive and potentially harmful treatments, she said.

The CDC's Rutz said there may be several subgroups among the people who identify themselves as Morgellons sufferers. One group may have delusional parasitosis, but another may have something else.

The 12-person CDC task force includes two pathologists, a toxicologist, an ethicist, a mental health expert and specialists in infectious, parasitic, environmental and chronic disease. The group is developing a case definition of Morgellons.

It's impossible to say how many people have Morgellons without a commonly accepted way to define it. The Morgellons Research Foundation believes the number is at least 5,500, based on the number of families registered with the organization's Web site.

Hopefully, a CDC case definition will lead some physicians to stop treating Morgellons patients like they're crazy, said Smith, the Georgia pediatrician and a Morgellons sufferer.

"A lot of physicians think that if it's not in the textbooks, it's not real," said Smith, who said a fiber once slid across his eyeball and then burrowed in.

Verna Gallagher, 48, said she's been seeing a dermatologist for nearly a year. "(But) he doesn't believe in Morgellons. He said 'That's not a real thing,'" said Gallagher, of Roseville, Calif., near Sacramento.

But while her doctor dismisses the fibers as lint, Gallagher says he is concerned that she may become suicidal. "I cry, and he says I have to live my life" and tells here to write down things that she likes to do.

Meanwhile, she says she is plagued by tiny dark specks and fibers that infest her house. She's paid for exterminators, taken antidepressants, bathed in Borax and spent hundreds on vitamins, garlic pills and other potential remedies.

"Nothing's helped," she said.

source

A drunken man who tried to rob a bank as a "joke" fell asleep while waiting on his money, a court has heard.

At Glasgow Sheriff Court, Derek Burns, 47, admitted a breach of the peace at a branch of Lloyds TSB in Glasgow's south side on 4 November, last year.

He had threatened workers with a can of deodorant in a bag portrayed as a weapon but when cash was refused he fell asleep, prompting staff laughter.

Sentence was deferred until later this month for background reports.

The incident happened at the Lloyds TSB branch in Albert Road, Crosshill.

Burns entered wearing his fluorescent works jacket with the hood up and approached a teller.


Prosecutor Derek Buchanan said: "Burns produced a blue carrier bag and held it in such a way that something long and cylindrical could be seen.

"He tried to push the bag through the counter tray. He said 'give us your money, give us your money'."

Staff activated the panic alarm.

The bank manager spoke with Burns and told him he was not getting any money.

The court heard how Burns remained in the bank, sat down and fell asleep.

The accused, of Alness Crescent, Mosspark claimed it had all been a joke.

His lawyer said the incident latterly became so farcical that staff could be seen laughing on closed circuit television footage.

Joe Shields, defending, added: "It was a joke of the worst possible taste."

:lol: :lol:


link

Two groups of international youths, are going to travel around denmark, to answer the question "What do the danes think of themselves?" they have no money, and will rely only on people's generosity, asking for lifts, and getting invited into people's homes, and hopefully also invited to dinner.

Now really? how cool is that?!

A story and a short Rant..........

'Alarm' at cross player's caution

The Catholic Church has criticised Scottish prosecutors for cautioning a Celtic goalkeeper who crossed himself during a match against Rangers.

Artur Boruc was cautioned for a breach of the peace over the incident at an Old Firm match at Ibrox in February.

The Catholic Church called it "worrying and alarming" as the sign of the cross was a "gesture of religious reverence".

However, the Crown Office said the decision was based on the player's behaviour, rather than a single act.

In addition to crossing himself, the player was alleged to have made gestures to the crowd at the start of the second half of the game on 12 February.

Strathclyde Police investigated complaints that Boruc, 26, had angered a section of the crowd with his behaviour and they submitted a report to the procurator fiscal.

However, as an alternative to prosecution, Boruc was cautioned. That does not leave him with a criminal record, although the information about the caution will be retained.

The Crown Office said his actions "provoked alarm and crowd trouble and as such constituted a breach of the peace".

In a further statement issued on Saturday, it said: "The decision to use an alternative to prosecution in this case was based on an assessment of behaviour, not one single act, which appeared to be directed towards the crowd which was being incited by that behaviour and which caused the police to intervene and calm the crowd."

However, Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Catholic Church, said the move to caution Boruc was "regrettable".

'Very common'

He said other actions could not be defended, but that a gesture of religious significance should not be considered offensive.

"It's a worrying and alarming development, especially since the sign of the cross is globally accepted as a gesture of religious reverence," he said.

"It's also very common in international football and was commonplace throughout the World Cup.

"It is extremely regrettable that Scotland seems to have made itself one of the few countries in the world where this simply religious gesture is considered an offence."

Nationalist leader Alex Salmond also criticised the decision to caution the player.

"The procurator fiscal has taken leave of their senses. I will be demanding an explanation for this," he said.

He said the "ludicrous" move was the type of action which brought the law and legal system into disrepute.

"The procurator fiscal and the Crown Office is acting in a way that will inflame rather than reduce religious antagonism," he said.

Liberal Democrat MSP Donald Gorrie said he felt the situation could have been addressed by talking to Mr Boruc privately.

He added: "I think they were wrong to focus on the crossing rather than the whole performance, as described to me by quite sensible people who were definitely wound up by it as they were intended to be, and he shouldn't do that."

'Set an example'

The goalkeeper, who played during this year's World Cup in Germany, signed for Celtic from Legia Warsaw in July last year.

Neither Celtic Football Club or Rangers have commented on the cautioning.

However, Rangers Supporters Group said it was "disappointing" Celtic did not take action against the player after the game.

Stephen Smith, spokesman for the group, added: "Professional footballers are meant to set an example. What he was, was deliberately provocative and completely done to wind up the fans, as if the fixture isn't volatile enough."

National plan

The fixture takes place in a charged atmosphere and has produced no shortage of controversy down the years.

Last year 12 people were arrested for acts of "religious prejudice" after an Old Firm match during which Rangers player Fernando Ricksen was struck by an object.

The match took place days after an "historic" summit on sectarianism where it was agreed to work on a national plan to tackle the problem.

That event was attended by both Celtic and Rangers, who later in the year launched a project to tackle bigotry and sectarianism in the west of Scotland.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5288184.stm


Ok now for my rant:

I am sick and tired of this nonsense every single year. I dont care whether its Rangers Directors singing "The Sash", Celtic players crossing themselves, Rangers fans singing about being "Up to our knees in fenian blood" or "No Pope of Rome", or Celtic fans singing the praises of the IRA and "Go home British soldiers go home, have you got no homes of your own?" NONE of this crap has any place in Scottish football.

There will be those of you who think I am being unfair saying players should no be able to make a public diplay of their religion. At the current stage however the west of scotland is still in the dark ages with respect to this. Artur Boruc knew full well what his gesture signifies in Glasgow, and if he didnt someone at Celtic FC should have made him fully aware of it.

It is mildly ironic that this should happen on the same day that the first openly Catholic player to sign for Rangers (Mo Johnston - 1989, previously Rangers had a policy of not signing Catholics) was named the manager of the new Toronto team that is due to start playing in the MLS.

A growing number of schools around the US are banning birthday cakes, saying the tradition has become too unhealthy.

Millions of students go back to school next week as their annual summer holiday comes to an end.

But one thing will be missing from classrooms across the country.

For generations American children have brought homemade cakes and cupcakes to school to celebrate birthdays with their classmates.

Like the rest of the country, children are facing what health officials call an epidemic of obesity.

The Centers for Disease Control estimate that one out of every six school-age children in the US is overweight.

The birthday cake bans are part of a wider national trend of schools discouraging sugary junk foods between classes in favour of healthier snacks, like fruits or yogurt.

But the new rules are not without controversy.

'Childhood tradition'

When one suburban school district just west of New York City tried it, the response from parents was overwhelmingly negative.

"The reaction was pretty overwhelming that this was not the way we wanted to treat kids," Kathy Meyer, a spokesperson for the Scotch Plains school district in New Jersey, said.

"Particularly elementary school parents who seem to think that the celebration of their children's birthday had become such a traditional part of classroom practice that somehow we were taking that moment of childhood from their children."

One state has even decided to offer financial incentives.

Connecticut recently passed a law giving schools 10 cents per student if they agreed to ban the sale of sugary foods, and they have compiled a 175-page list of foods that comply with the new guidelines.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5308796.stm

Anyone here seen that movie Demolition Man, which says that in the future, everything unhealthy will be illegal?

I havent but Ive read Bootleg by Alex Shearer which is when the "Good for You party" ( who appeato be alot like the Nazi's) come into power and ban choclate and these kids have a bootlegging factory and start a revolution.

SCarily I think they might just try and do it ban anything unhealthy.

LAst week on the radio there was this woman saying parents should shame their kids into losing weight because ( qnd Im not making this up) no one can be proud of a fat child.

'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin killed

Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast.
Mr Irwin, 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray's barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef.

Paramedics from Cairns rushed to the scene but were unable to save him.

Mr Irwin was known for his television show The Crocodile Hunter and his work with native Australian wildlife.

Police in Queensland confirmed the environmentalist's death and said his family had been notified. Mr Irwin was married with two young children.

Mr Irwin's manager John Stainton told the BBC the stingray's barb had pierced the personality's heart.

"He came over the top of a stingray and a barb, the stingray's barb went up and put a hole into his heart," he said.

"We got him back within a couple of minutes to Croc 1, which is Steve's research vessel, and by 12 o'clock when the emergency crew arrived they pronounced him dead."

The incident happened at Batt Reef, off Port Douglas.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he had known Mr Irwin well, and that the country had lost a "wonderful and colourful son".

"I am quite shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden untimely and freakish death", he said.

"It's a huge loss to Australia - he was a wonderful character, he was a passionate environmentalist, he brought entertainment and excitement to millions of people."

The stingray is a flat, triangular-shaped fish, commonly found in tropical waters.

It gets its name from the razor-sharp barb at the end of its tail, coated in toxic venom, which the animal uses to defend itself with when it feels threatened.

Attacks on humans are a rarity - only one other person is known to have died in Australia from a stingray attack, at St Kilda, Melbourne in 1945.

"Stingrays only sting in defence, they're not aggressive animals so the animal must have felt threatened. It didn't sting out of aggression, it stung out of fear," Dr Bryan Fry, Deputy Director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne said.


more

:bawling: Fare thee well, Crocodile Hunter. Your courage and tenacity will never be forgotten. May you yet live ever in the hearts of adventurers everywhere. In pace requiescat! :bawling:

A US woman who won $1m (£536,000) in the New York state lottery four years ago has beaten the odds by winning another $1m lottery jackpot. Valerie Wilson scooped her second $1m prize on a lottery scratch card.

Experts say that the chances of her winning both games were an incredible 1 in 3,669,120,000,000.

"The first time I couldn't believe it," the 56-year-old Long Island deli worker told the Newsday newspaper. "This time I said, 'God's on my side'."

Lottery officials say that in 2002 Ms Wilson beat odds of 1 in 5.2 million when she won the Cool Million scratch card game

Then last month she beat odds of 1 in 705,600 by winning New York lottery's Jubilee scratch card game.

According to New York state lottery officials, there have been two other double jackpot winners, who like Ms Wilson each won $1m prizes on two separate occasions.

"I lost my husband in 1993, so I went to the cemetery and thanked him," Ms Wilson told Newsday. "I figured he had something to do with it."

Ms Wilson says that the first time she won she used the money to help buy houses for her three children.

"This one is going to be for me," she said of the latest win. "I'm going to live a little bit."

Instead of getting a lump sum, Ms Wilson will get instalments of $50,000 a year for the next 20 years.

But despite her double victory Ms Wilson says she is not planning to quit her job in a local deli where she makes sandwiches and works on the till.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5331556.stm

A great-grandfather is to graduate with an honours degree in sociology, days ahead of his 90th birthday.

After six years of part-time study, widower William Cooper, 89, gained a lower-second-class degree from Wolverhampton University.

He said his last experience of formal education at Wolverhampton Grammar School in the 1920s, had prepared him well for his latest challenge.

"I was used to attending every day. So for six years, I didn't miss an hour."

'Snooze and you lose'

Mr Cooper had been retired from his job as a chief wages cashier for more than 20 years when his daughter-in-law first suggested he went to university.

"It's very difficult when you become a widower," said Mr Cooper, whose wife died in 1995.

"You can snooze in a chair all afternoon but you have to push yourself to get going."

He had already taken up cookery classes, computing and keep fit, but a sociology degree gave him the excuse for a good argument, he said.

Asked what he would do with his degree, he said: "Nothing really. It's just a thing to pass retirement.

"But I proved to myself that I was as good as the rest and I got a certain amount of satisfaction that I had not wasted my time.

"I asked a lot of questions. The young ones were rather dumb as far as speaking up was concerned, but I induced them to follow suit.

"Lecturers told me I got my degree through persistence."

'Only a whim'

Mr Cooper, of Wednesfield in Wolverhampton, said that while he could not always remember people's names, his memory was still intact and technology had not proved an obstacle.

"I'm computer literate. We had computers where I worked in the 70s, although they were huge."

The degree cost Mr Cooper £4,000.

"I suppose it's only fair that people like me pay who are not going to give anything back. It's only really a whim."

Once next week's graduation ceremony and the following month's birthday celebrations are over, Mr Cooper is considering an Alpha Bible study course.

"So I can prepare for the next life," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5320852.stm

Now we know why the surly teenager storms off in a huff after being told to tidy their bedroom.

Adolescents do not put the part of the brain that considers others' feelings to full use, scientists have found.

It seems our neural decision-making processes mature quite slowly, and researchers think this might help to explain typical teenage behaviour.

The adolescent brain undergoes massive changes and does not reach maturity until 20 or 30 years old.

Details of the study were reported here at the British Association's annual Science Festival.

"The brain is pre-programmed to undergo massive changes during adolescence," Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of University College London told the meeting.

Movie matters

Dr Blakemore and her team used a sophisticated fMRI scanner to measure the brain activity of teenagers between 11 and 17, and young adults between 21 and 37.

The fMRI technique measures blood flow in different brain areas, and can identify "hotspots" where a lot of activity is taking place.

The volunteers were asked to think about what they would do in certain situations that involved their own actions.

For example, the researchers might say: "You want to go to the cinema. Do you look at the newspaper?"

When thinking about what they would do, both age groups used the same neural pathway; but different parts of the pathway were most active in the two groups.

Adults used a brain area towards the front of the pathway, called the medial prefrontal cortex, to come up with their answers. Adolescents showed more brain activity in the superior temporal sulcus - an area at the rear.

"The superior temporal sulcus is usually used in making simple actions, or watching other people make actions," said Dr Blakemore. "We think adolescents are performing this task by simply thinking about the action they're going to take.

"The part of the brain that the adults are using more is involved in much higher level thinking, such as thinking about the consequences of your actions in terms of other peoples' emotions and feelings."

Immature minds

As a control, the study subjects were asked questions that did not involve their own actions, such as, "It's been raining hard. Does the ground get warmer?"

These questions activated brain networks in a similar way in both groups.

The new research shows that hormones may not be fully to blame for typical teenage behaviour.

Teenage brains undergo large structural changes during adolescence, and do not reach full maturity until at least 20 or 30 years of age.

"If you're making decisions about how you treat teenagers, socially and legally, you need to take this new research into account," said Dr Blakemore.

"The brain of, for example, a typical 15-year-old boy is very much still developing; he's a very different person from himself at 25. His brain is very different."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5327550.stm