Cyborg Brain A Reality

For the first time, scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich have coupled living brain tissue to a chip equivalent to the chips that run computers.

The scientists in Martinsried developed a revolutionary noninvasive technique that enables them to record neural communication between thousands of nerve cells in the tissue of a brain slice with high spatial resolution. This technique involves culturing razor-thin slices of the hippocampus region on semiconductor chips.

A thin tissue slice of a rat hippocampus region (top) is cultivated on a semiconductor chip with 16.384 sensory transistors per square millimetre (center, dark coloured square). Following excitation the chip maps the electrical activity of the neurons (bottom), caused by activity of synapses (red: positive, blue: negative). copyright: Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

REF: High-resolution multi-transistor array recording of electrical field potentials in cultured brain slices

Batman A-Go-Go

WATCH THE HULLABALOO DANCERS GO-GO-GO! TO THE BATMAN THEME:

For some good ol' 60's flavoured comic book stories pick up "Doc" Allred's solo "Solo" book from DC Comics at your favourite comic shop.

Fleet Street Scandal

Both the Cartoon Brew and Drawn! have posted on the work of Kevin Dart and Chris Turnham being sold through their new website, Fleet Street Scandal.

Highly recommended for the walls of the Atomic Surgery Theatres here at the Quatermass Research Institute.

Corn Flakes Invented This Day

In 1884, a patent for "flaked cereal" was applied for by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. He was trying to improve the vegetarian diet of his hospital patients, by searching for a digestible bread-substitute by the process of boiling wheat. Kellogg accidentally left a pot of boiled wheat to stand and become tempered. When it was put through a rolling process, each grain of wheat emerged as a large, thin flake. When the flakes were baked, they became crisp and light, creating an easy to prepare breakfast when milk was added. Link Image Link

Watch Ozric Tentacles Live:

Vampirella: Aurora Monster Scenes

(click to enlarge and read)

Back in the early 70's Aurora produced a series of "Monster Scenes" model kits based around a Vampirella figure. These are the instructions for assembling one of the pieces featuring the art of either Neal Adams or his Continuity Studios. Note the ridiculous lengths the accompanying comic had to stretch to try to make it somehow 'wholesome' for kids (or at least the parents buying these things).

Watch Vampirella in action:


Vampirella © her current copyright holders

Bending Starlight Supports Relativity

On this day in 1919, a solar eclipse permitted observation of the bending of starlight passing through the sun's gravitational field, as predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Expeditions from the Royal Astronomical Society traveled to Brazil and the west coast of Africa to make measurements of the position of stars visible close to the sun during a solar eclipse. These observations showed that, indeed, the light of stars was bent as it passed through the gravitational field of the sun. This was a key prediction of Einstein's theory that gravity affected energy as in addition to the familiar effect on matter. Link

The Drake Equation

Born this day: Frank Donald Drake, an American astronomer who formulated the Drake Equation (1961) to estimate the number of technological civilizations that may exist in our galaxy. Drake led the first search, the two-month Project Ozma, to listen for patterns in radio waves with a complex, ordered pattern that might be assumed to represent messages from some extraterrestrial intelligence.

Carl Sagan and Drake designed the plaques on Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 for the purpose of greeting and informing any extraterrestrial life that might find the vessels after they left the solar system. Link

Project Ozma

Fireball XL5 Blasts Off!