03 PM | 31 Dec

“The Body that Meditation Built” [#geekgirl]

[As reported by SBS] “…a group of scientists in America, Spain and France has shown mindfulness meditation can create specific molecular changes. The study compared experienced meditators after an eight hour mindfulness practice with untrained control subjects engaging in “non-meditative” pursuits. According to the study, dedicated meditative time resulted in “a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation.” These rapid changes are truly staggering.”

06 PM | 30 Dec

Play Vintage Console Games in Your Browser [#geekgirl]

[Via archive.org]

[Via archive.org]

[As reported at The Verge] “This week, it means that nearly every Atari 2600, Atari 7800, ColecoVision, Magnavox Odyssey², and Astrocade game is now playable on the web. It’s part of the Internet Archive’s new Console Living Room section.

While the Internet Archive’s Historical Software Collection is meant to highlight a small number of culturally important programs, the Console Living Room is slightly different in scope. It’s only games, but it attempts to collect practically every game for these vintage consoles that would be playable. Curator Jason Scott tells The Verge that while it doesn’t include homebrew or titles for obscure peripherals like the Atari Mindlink, the current library for these five machines is otherwise comprehensive to a fault. “A new generation of people are going to discover how horrible some of these games were,” says Scott, half-jokingly.”

 

03 PM | 27 Dec

A new suspect in bee deaths: the US government [#geekgirl]

[Via Quartz] “As scientists race to pinpoint the cause of the global collapse of honey bee populations that pollinate a third of the world’s crops, environmental groups have indentified one culprit: US authorities who continue to approve pesticides implicated in the apian apocalypse.

Case in point: The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) conditional approval in May of sulfoxaflor, a type of agricultural pesticide known as a neonicotinoid. The European Union has banned neonicotinoids for two years in response to scientific studies linking their use to the sudden death of entire beehives, a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Over the past six years, CCD has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives worth $2 billion. Bee colonies in the US are so decimated that it takes 60% of the nation’s bee population to pollinate a single crop, California almonds. And that’s not just a local problem; California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds.

Now environmental and food safety groups are seeking to overturn the EPA’s green-lighting of neonicotinoids in a series of lawsuits that for the first time invoke the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) to protect the bees. “EPA inadequately considered, or ignored entirely, sulfoxaflor’s harm to pollinators and the significant costs that harm will impose on the agricultural economy, food security, and natural ecosystems,” attorneys for the nonprofit Center for Food Safety and other groups argued in a legal brief (PDF) filed in December in litigation aiming to revoke the approval of sulfoxaflor. “

09 AM | 24 Dec

Alan Turing Posthumously Pardoned [Finally] [#geekgirl]

Alan Turing [From "Sexuality In Art"]

Alan Turing [From “Sexuality In Art”]

[Via Slashdot]”Today’s computing would be unthinkable without the contributions of the British mathematician Alan Turing, who laid down the foundations of computer science, broke Nazi codes that helped win World War II at the famous Bletchley Park, created a secure speech encryption system, made major contributions to logic and philosophy, and even invented the concept of Artificial Intelligence. But he was also an eccentric and troubled man who was persecuted (and prosecuted) for being gay, a tragedy that contributed to his suicide just short of the age of 42 when he died of cyanide poisoning, possibly from a half-eaten apple found by his side. He is hailed today as one of the great originators of our computing age. Today he received a royal pardon.”