Japan debuts 3-D TV

Badminton matches look so real playing on Hyundai’s new 3-D TV that you may reflexively dodge the virtual shuttlecock.

A polar bear pawing the glass of his tank may seem to be inside the TV pushing on the screen.

Hyundai is offering — in Japan only — the first product for watching the 3-D programs that cable stations in Japan now broadcast about four times a day.

There are a few catches:

The 46-inch liquid-crystal display requires 3-D glasses; it’s expensive — $3,960, including two pairs of glasses, or about 25 percent more than a comparable regular LCD TV; and the only programs available so far include just a few minutes of video from Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido — shots from the zoo, motorcycle races and other short scenes.

Seen on regular TVs, 3D programs split the screen vertically so the same image appears in both the left and right halves. Conversely, wearing the 3-D glasses while watching regular programming on the Hyundai 3-D TV produces a slight 3-D effect.

The TV uses stereoscopic technology called TriDef from DDD Group Plc in Santa Monica, California, which works by sending the same image separately for the left eye and the right eye. – CNN

I don’t think 3-D TV will catch on until they get rid of the glasses.

Thinking Ahead: Bacteria Anticipate Coming Changes In Their Environment

Microbes may be smarter than we think. A new study by Princeton University researchers shows for the first time that bacteria don’t just react to changes in their surroundings — they anticipate and prepare for them. The findings, reported in the June 6 issue of Science, challenge the prevailing notion that only organisms with complex nervous systems have this ability.

“What we have found is the first evidence that bacteria can use sensed cues from their environment to infer future events,” says Saeed Tavazoie, an associate professor in the department of Molecular Biology, who conducted the study along with graduate student Ilias Tagkopoulos and post-doctoral researcher Yir-Chung Liu.

The research team, which included biologists and engineers, used lab experiments to demonstrate this phenomenon in common bacteria. They also turned to computer simulations to explain how a microbe species’ internal network of genes and proteins could evolve over time to produce such complex behavior. … Remarkably, within a few hundred generations the bugs partially adapted to this new regime, and no longer turned off the genes for aerobic respiration when the temperature rose. “This reprogramming clearly indicates that shutting down aerobic respiration following a temperature increase is not essential to E. coli’s survival,” says Tavazoie. “On the contrary, it appears that the bacterium has “learned” this response by associating specific temperatures with specific oxygen levels over the course of its evolution.” Lacking a brain or even a primitive nervous system, how is a single-celled bacterium able to pull off this feat? Whereas higher animals can learn new behavior within a single lifetime, bacterial learning takes place over many generations and on an evolutionary time scale, Tavazoie explains. – sd

Much of our intelligence is inherited as instinct.

The “Skull” on Mars

Found on hunting for gold. Interesting. Is this really a Mars photo?

The Bigfoot On Mars – A Closer Look

My understanding is that the position makes this feature only a few inches high. No one else has the 2nd frame I found…

Always go to the source, to the raw data, or as close as possible. Here is a link to the high resolution image on nasa’s site. Here is another image of this figure. See the path and photos taken by Opportunity rover. Here is the Spirit rover’s taverse map, and here.

So, when looking at this figure, we are looking at Sol1369. Previously I found two slightly different images of the figure. When put together, seemed to show the same image from slightly different angles. I created an animated GIF and the head and arm seemed to move. Now I can’t find the originals I used to make that…

sol1369a-F-20080102.

more about “The Bigfoot On Mars – A Closer Look“, posted with vodpod

Flowing Water On Mars

more about "Flowing Water On Mars", posted with vodpod

Like Humans, Other Apes Plan Ahead

Chimps and orangutans plan for the future just like us.

They are capable of exercising self-control to postpone gratification and to imagine future events via “mental time travel,” according to new research from Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden.

The skill of future planning was commonly thought to be exclusive to humans, although some studies of apes and crows have challenged this idea, say researchers Mathias and Helena Osvath. Now, for the first time, there is “conclusive evidence of advanced planning capacities in non-human species,” they say.

The results are detailed online this week in the journal Animal Cognition. – yahoo

These apes choose a tool that would allow them to get more food in the future over a smaller amount of their favorite food in the present.

A Watermelon Viking

Test… click to enlarge