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Police Arrest Joseph Waldo, Suspected Moustache Man, On Felony Criminal Mischief, Graffiti Instrument Possession Charges

Police said they nabbed a man who wrote the word “Moustache” in black permanent market on hundreds of posters throughout the New York City subway system.

Joseph Waldo was arrested on charges including felony criminal mischief and possession of a graffiti instrument.

There was no phone listing for the 26-year-old man at a Manhattan address provided by police.

Waldo is accused of drawing the word “Moustache” in flamboyant cursive on the upper-lips of people depicted on movie and television posters in the subway system.

Police said officers spent two months documenting posters vandalized by the so-called “Moustache Man.”

Graffiti websites also have been tracking the work.

Responding to news of the arrest, Subway Art Blog criticized police for spending time and money tracking down “street artists.”

via Police Arrest Joseph Waldo, Suspected Moustache Man, On Felony Criminal Mischief, Graffiti Instrument Possession Charges « CBS New York.

Great excuse to listen to CAKE’s “Moustache Man”.

Markus Kayser Builds a Solar-Powered 3D Printer that Prints Glass from Sand and a Sun-Powered Cutter

…Merging two of the deserts most abundant resources, nearly unlimited quantities of sand and sun, he created the Solar Sinter, a device that melts sand to create 3D objects out of glass. Via his web site:

This process of converting a powdery substance via a heating process into a solid form is known as sintering and has in recent years become a central process in design prototyping known as 3D printing or SLS (selective laser sintering). [...] By using the sun’s rays instead of a laser and sand instead of resins, I had the basis of an entirely new solar-powered machine and production process for making glass objects that taps into the abundant supplies of sun and sand to be found in the deserts of the world.

In mid-May the Solar Sinter was tested for a two week period in the deserts of Siwa, Egypt, resulting in the amazing footage above.

via Markus Kayser Builds a Solar-Powered 3D Printer that Prints Glass from Sand and a Sun-Powered Cutter | Colossal.

Man flu really does exist

Australian researchers found that female volunteers had a “much stronger immune response” to rhinoviruses — the bugs that usually cause the common cold — than men.

The protection vanished after the menopause, suggesting it was regulated by female sex hormones. This would help explain why men are much more likely to fall ill when they get infected.

Prof John Upham, of the University of Queensland, said: “It makes sense from a biological point of view because women are more likely to ensure the survival of the species.”

The findings should come as some comfort to those men who feel falsely accused of having a bout of “man ‘flu” when they are, in fact, suffering for real.

Prof Upham added: “We noticed that when women reached menopause, their improved resistance to rhinoviruses faded away. So hormones obviously play a huge part in helping fight viruses.” …

via Man flu really does exist – Telegraph.

Deep history of coconuts decoded

The coconut (the fruit of the palm Cocos nucifera) is the Swiss Army knife of the plant kingdom; in one neat package it provides a high-calorie food, potable water, fiber that can be spun into rope, and a hard shell that can be turned into charcoal. What’s more, until it is needed for some other purpose it serves as a handy flotation device.

No wonder people from ancient Austronesians to Captain Bligh pitched a few coconuts aboard before setting sail. (The mutiny of the Bounty is supposed to have been triggered by Bligh’s harsh punishment of the theft of coconuts from the ship’s store.)

So extensively is the history of the coconut interwoven with the history of people traveling that Kenneth Olsen, a plant evolutionary biologist, didn’t expect to find much geographical structure to coconut genetics when he and his colleagues set out to examine the DNA of more than 1300 coconuts from all over the world.

“I thought it would be mostly a mish-mash,” he says, thoroughly homogenized by humans schlepping coconuts with them on their travels.

He was in for a surprise. It turned out that there are two clearly differentiated populations of coconuts, a finding that strongly suggests the coconut was brought under cultivation in two separate locations, one in the Pacific basin and the other in the Indian Ocean basin. What’s more, coconut genetics also preserve a record of prehistoric trade routes and of the colonization of the Americas. …

via Deep history of coconuts decoded | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis.

Alzheimer’s Prevention in Your Pantry: Cinnamon

Alzheimer’s, the degenerative brain disorder that disrupts memory, thought and behavior, is devastating to both patients and loved ones. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, one in eight Americans over the age of 65 suffers from the disease. Now Tel Aviv University has discovered that an everyday spice in your kitchen cupboard could hold the key to Alzheimer’s prevention. …

Prof. Ovadia was inspired to investigate the healing properties of cinnamon by a passage in the Bible. It describes high priests using the spice in a holy ointment, he explains, presumably meant to protect them from infectious diseases during sacrifices. After discovering that the cinnamon extract had antiviral properties, Prof. Ovadia empirically tested these properties in both laboratory and animal Alzheimer’s models. …

The researchers isolated CEppt by grinding cinnamon and extracting the substance into an aqueous buffer solution. They then introduced this solution into the drinking water of mice that had been genetically altered to develop an aggressive form of Alzheimer’s disease, and fruit flies that had been mutated with a human gene that also stimulated Alzheimer’s disease and shortened their lifespan.

After four months, the researchers discovered that development of the disease had slowed remarkably and the animals’ activity levels and longevity were comparable to that of their healthy counterparts. The extract, explains Prof. Ovadia, inhibited the formation of toxic amyloid polypeptide oligomers and fibrils, which compose deposits of plaque found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

In the test-tube model, the substance was also found to break up amyloid fibers, similar to those collected in the brain to kill neurons. According to Prof. Ovadia, this finding indicates that CEppt may not just fight against the development of the disease, but may help to cure it after Alzheimer’s molecules have already formed. In the future, he says, the team of researchers should work towards achieving the same result in animal models.

Adding a dash of cinnamon

Don’t rush to your spice cabinet just yet, however. It would take far more than a toxic level of the spice — more than 10 grams of raw cinnamon a day — to reap the therapeutic benefits. The solution to this medical catch-22, Prof. Ovadia says, would be to extract the active substance from cinnamon, separating it from the toxic elements. …

via American Friends of Tel Aviv University: Alzheimer’s Prevention in Your Pantry.

I once had a crush on a girl named Cinnamon.  Hey, wait, the story above doesn’t make sense. If they have to extract the active part of cinnamon for it to work, how did it work in the mouse model? Are they just saying this so they can profit from patenting something? I’ll add some cinnamon to my morning shakes, just in case. 

Goodbye cold sores

Herpes infections on the lips, in the eyes or on the nose are painful, long-lasting and unpleasant. A new 3D herpes infection model brings hope: active ingredients and new treatments can be reliably tested with this model. Animal tests could soon be a thing of the past.It burns and itches on your upper lip: a herpes infection is on the advance. Caught early, the number and size blisters can be controlled with virus-controlling salves, but the herpes simplex virus can recur at any time. “About 90 percent of the world‘s population carry it in them all their lives, once infected, and become sick again in stress situations,“ explains Dr. Anke Burger-Kentischer of the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart. Coming down with a herpes virus is not always without its dangers. In the worst cases the nervous system and the brain become inflamed. The researcher, together with her team and the cell systems department, developed a 3D herpes infection model. This makes it possible for the first time to integrate the complicated dormant stage of the virus into a model of the skin. A patent application has been submitted for the new process.

The expert explains the particularity of the virus: “After the blisters subside, the herpes virus retreats to the nerve cells and rests there. At this stage, only the virus’ DNA can be proven.“ As soon as a human suffers too much stress or is even exposed to too much intense sun, the nerve cell may release the virus. It travels along the neural pathways to sites where it has occurred several times before, and the new infection becomes visible.

To date the skin models used for drug testing and to detect the virus have been very simple and unable to simulate the dormancy state of the virus. “We have integrated a neuronal cell line into the certified skin model of the IGB and are able to detect this latency stage for the first time. Just like in the human nerve cells, the particles of the virus itself cannot be seen; only the presence of its DNA can be proven by means of a PCR polymerase chain reaction analysis,“ explains the expert. The researcher and her team then exposed the skin model to ultraviolet radiation at wave lengths of 280 to 315 nanometers UVB. This reactivated the herpes virus, and there was an infection on the skin model.

Proof of this reactivation was also possible on a co-culture. For this, the researchers introduced the latently infected neuronal cell line to a carrier with pores. Subsequently the cells were also irradiated with UVB. The virus was reactivated and penetrated these pores, infecting the cutaneous keratinocytes – the keratinizing cells cultivated previously. To verify the infection, the scientists used a specific antibody that binds to a specific protein on the outer layer of the virus. The coloration of this antibody made it possible to clearly show the infection of the skin cells with the reactivated virus from the nerve cells. “The 3-D herpes infection model therefore simulates an in-vivo situation exactly. …

via Goodbye cold sores – Research News 06-2011 Topic 5 – Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

I’ve had the shallow white painful cold sores a few times under great stress, but not for many. Good dental hygiene seems to and overall health seems to keep them away. Still, if they are dormant in my nerve cell DNA, I’d like to get them wiped out. It seems like we are still far off from little machines that can go in and read your DNA and repair it, but won’t that be neat?

The rise and rise (and rise) of Apple’s iOS

When the first iOS gadget shipped in 2007, The New York Times’ David Pogue published a list of questions about the new iPhone. The last question on the list was: “Who on earth would buy this thing?”

It’s a question nobody would ask today. The phone, and Apple’s other mobile devices that run the iOS are succeeding beyond anyone’s predictions. Apple says the iOS is currently installed on more than 200 million devices.

Another small thing happened in 2007 that has become a big thing: Apple filed a patent request for the capacitive touch screen used by the iPhone, iPad and, in fact, by nearly all of Apple’s competitors in the market. That patent was granted this week.

One possible outcome of the inevitable court cases to come is that competitors may have to pay Apple a licensing fee for every non-Apple smartphone or tablet shipped. …

last year Google earned about $102 million from apps sales, while Apple raked in $1.7 billion.

via Elgan: The rise and rise (and rise) of Apple’s iOS – Computerworld.

Columbo star Peter Falk dies aged 83

Peter Falk, the American actor most famous for his role as scruffy TV detective Columbo, has died aged 83.

The actor died peacefully at home in Beverly Hills on Thursday night, his family said in a statement.

He had been suffering from dementia for a number of years.

Peter Falk won four Emmys for his cigar-chomping role as the deceptively bumbling Columbo, and was nominated for Oscars in 1960 and 1961 for Murder Inc and Pocketful of Miracles.

In the 1987 cult classic The Princess Bride, he played a kindly old man regaling his sick grandson with a fairytale combination of swordplay, giants, a beautiful princess and fearsome rodents of unusual size.

But for most fans, even his best-supporting actor nominations were eclipsed by his incarnation as the sleuth in the shabby mac with no known first name and the killer catch-phrase: “One more thing…”

‘Like a flood victim’

Columbo first appeared on American TV screens in 1968, and NBC commissioned a series in which the detective appeared every third week from 1971 until it was cancelled in 1977.

The part of its policeman hero had originally been written for Bing Crosby, but Falk made the part his own and continued to make special episodes well into his 70s.

He reportedly turned down an offer to convert it into a weekly series, citing the heavy workload. …

via BBC News – Columbo star Peter Falk dies aged 83.

RIP Mr. Falk. Here is an important message he filmed on retinoblastoma:

Billy the Kid portrait fetches $2.3m at Denver auction

The only known authenticated portrait of the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid has sold for $2.3m £1.4m at auction in Denver, in the US state of Colorado. The tintype – an early form of photo using metal plates – is believed to have been taken in 1879 or 1880 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. It depicts the gunfighter in rumpled clothes and a hat, gazing at the camera and holding a Winchester rifle.The tintype was bought by private collector William Koch. It went for some six times the estimate – making it the most expensive piece ever sold at Brian Lebel’s Annual Old West Show & Auction, said auction spokeswoman Melissa McCracken. Lawless Billy the Kid gave the image to a friend, Dan Dendrick, in whose family it has remained ever since.It is a classic image of the American West, said Ms McCracken before Saturday’s auction.

“There’s only one photo of Billy the Kid, and I think that’s why it captivates people’s imagination,” she said. The outlaw was reputedly born in New York but moved to Colorado with his mother and brothers when his father died.

He fell into a career of thievery and lawlessness and was hunted across the southern US states and northern Mexico. He is widely thought to have killed 21 people, although some sources put the figure as high as 27. Billy the Kid was captured and sentenced to hang for the 1878 murder of a county sheriff. He then escaped, only to be hunted down and killed by Sheriff Patrick Floyd Garrett on 14 July 1881.

via BBC News – Billy the Kid portrait fetches $2.3m at Denver auction.

What is the thing on the left side of the picture? At first I thought it was a tree, but if you look at the bottom, it isn’t a tree. Some overalls hanging upside down?