FF - Will Using Superpaper Get You Into Harvard?

Friday Fragments is back to help you get through the last day of the week....

Superpaper...is scissors it's kryptonite?

-Superpaper to the rescue!  It's magnetic, waterproof, antibacterial, and will do your taxes.  Well 3 out of 4 of those our true, I'll let you figure out which is false.

-For those of you who like video games, specifically Portal, this mini-golf course was made just for you. I got to be honest, the Portal hole looks incredible!

-The first time ever, am organ (kidney in this case) was transplanted TWICE.

-I absolutely love this take on trying to get into college. (Note, comical not serious).  I am curious what would happen if you used that superpaper to write your entrance essays?

-This is a little bit random but some Little Leaguers wore throw back jerseys recently. This throw back fad is becoming an epidemic (and how do I get to be a part of it???).

-Lastly, take a look at this video below...it is total destruction of household stuff in super-slow motion!  Pure awesomeness!

Friday Fragments - Breaking Barriers

So I am out of excuses other than I am busy.  My research projects are starting to take off and the couple classes I'm in are quite humbling because I really haven't felt this lost in a class since Mrs. Byrnes W131 high school English class.  Also, I have been choosing to have an active social life traversing around the local midwest, rather than spend time writing blog posts in my spare time (and I am currently watching The Wonder Years on Netflix and until I finish that my downtime is pretty full).  But, I will try and give you all a few fragments to get you through the afternoon, mainly because I am about as motivated to get stuff done this morning as a 90 year turtle at the zoo is to move for the little children.  My hope is that this will start some momentum for the afternoon. Enough rambling...

-Here is an excellent article explaining how close we are to a couple MAJOR physics breakthroughs.

The single atom transistor.

-Moore's Law, ha!  The single atom transistor breaks down that barrier without batting an electron (<--terrible joke, I know).

-If you are Windows user, like myself and 99% of the industrial and business world, you can get a "consumer preview" of Windows 8 right here!  Essentially, it is the Windows Phone 7 OS for PCs.  It looks great, and is getting good reviews thus far.  Let's just hope PC companies don't f*%$ it up...I'm looking at you Dell.

-Assassin's Creed III will be coming out in October and they have released the cover art...AMERICAN REVOLUTION!

-Lastly, John Mayer released his new single Shadow Days, for his upcoming album Born and Raised.  He is starting his Spring tour soon which just so happens to go through Purdue. 

Friday Fragments (11/25/11)

Thanksgiving is upon us and I for am thankful for a few days of rest and relaxation.  Here are some interesting links for you to check out on this Black Friday..

-First, I want a pair of these blinds in my office and in our lab, considering neither of them have windows.

I suggest something like this for your
friends that remind you of characters
from "The Big Bang Theory" show.

-If you know someone in your family that is either a science nerd (like myself) or a sci-fi geek check out io9.com's gift guide.  I particular like the books section (hint hint)!

-In France, doctors have successfully bone marrow to create new blood and give a transfusion to another person.  It's a matter of time before blood drives will be obsolete and we can just grow blood for people.

-Chances are that you are reading this from a computer (or phone) that has a dual-core processor. Maybe even a quad-core and six-core machine if you are an avid computer builder.  But now AMD has outdone itself with it's new beast of a processor with 16-cores!  I can't wait to play 16 simultaneous games of Peggle!

-Scientists have put out a new APB for a giant gas planet missing from our solar system.  New calculations suggest that we may have lost a gas giant to the universe early in the development of our solar system.  So anyone with information leading to the safe return of this giant planet please contact NASA for a job so that you may utilize your talents appropriately.

-I've mention spray on skin but this is truly innovative.  Take a healthy sample, give it 20 minutes and presto...new skin to spray on to the patient!

-Lastly, I want a pair of these contacts.  They come with a built in LED "interface."  Sure it's just one light that blinks right now but soon it will be the internet controlled by your brain!

Friday Fragments (10/7/11)

Friday again and today the "Fragments" are going into BEAST MODE!  For some reason when I opened up my folder of saved bookmarks for the fragments I found about 3 times the normal amount of links.  So without further blabbering here are enough links to keep you occupied all afternoon!

-As you know by now, Steve Jobs passed away this week.  And even though I have never own anything Apple, I believe that he single handily pushed a technology revolution that is still happening today. And I found this video that explains how Apple predicted the iPhone 4S technology 24 years ago in 1987!  It's pretty close to the real thing, down to the prediction of what year it will happen.  Thank you Mr. Jobs for everything you brought us, your legacy will live on for years to come.

-I said this last week, but Windows 7.5 (or Mango) is out for Windows phones and it's pretty good.  Already getting rave reviews, I hope that my turn to update will come shortly (it's some sort of phased update, wtf).  However, Microsoft also announced that they will no longer be making Zune players.  The Zune software, which I think is one of the best music players available, will still be available for PC and WP7.

-Some bad news in the contraceptive front this week, a widely used contraceptive in Africa may actually lead to an increased risk of HIV contraction. Not Good!  So to lighten the mood, check out these awesome condom brands!

-Accuweather.com released their winter weather outlook. And I'm official disgruntled! (The Midwest is in f

or a long, cold winter)

-I found this list of the most beautiful colleges campus. It seemed fitting since the leaves are starting to turn around campus.  Even if both Notre Dame and IU made the list.

-An interesting look at drug rationing in the US.  And Nanorockets...I think so!  These look awesome, plain and simple!

-In Nobel Prize news, the first ever posthumously award Nobel Prize was given out this week.  Also, chemist who was essentially forced out of his job and research because of his findings on quasi-crystals receives justification in the form of a Nobel Prize. 

-This link is only a quick look at the news in molecular science, but the atomic mirror is what caught my eye.  We may only be a few years away from quantum computers!

-The Japan earthquake earlier this year was so massive that it actually changed Earth's gravity!  Only by 2 billionths of a gal, but still.

-In the world of physics I found two very interesting articles.  One about neutrinos and the consequences of going faster than the speed of light.  The second on naked singularity.  Sounds sexy, so you'll have to click the link to find out (hint: you might be sorely disappointed).  Both have some relevancy to the currents state of physics research today.  Also, if you understand either one of the articles at all you should pat yourself on the back because I'm still a little confused and I read them a few days ago.

-In biology, scientists have used bacteria to encode messages.  I reported on E. coli being a memory storage device but this is pretty cool too.

-Lastly...this is one of the coolest time lapse videos ever.  I particularly like how you can see part of the Milky Way galaxy in some of the night shots.  Enjoy!

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

Friday Fragments (9/30/11)

Well this week has been quite the crap-shoot of productivity.  At the times when I needed to be productive and get stuff done, I wasn't able to focus between the upcoming football, ridiculously ever-changing weather, and random activities around the lab.  And other times when I had time to just sit back and relax I decided to to go big instead of go home (my ass still hurts from plyometrics on Tuesday but whatever).  So, I have about an half hour to burn before my last requirement for the week on campus, my major professor's is giving a seminar to another department...and there's free refreshments!

Anyway, I wasn't prepared for a Fragments this week because I have just been lazy and forgotten to save interesting articles.  Plus, I have spent a good amount of my usual time spent of science and news articles looking at the Purdue vs Notre Dame preview and fantasy football stats. See Hammerandrails.com or BoiledSports.com for good Purdue sports blogs!

Side Note: Quick shout out to my brother, Adam, is 0-3 in our fantasy league but is by far the best manager I ever had in a fantasy league.  The dude writes extensive weekly reviews about the match-ups, previews upcoming games, and has created a ton of weekly "trophies" for me to waste time looking at during the week.  It feels some much more legit when I win!  Thanks dude! (I should also note that he isn't completely terrible at fantasy football, but he drafted Arian Foster [bust #1] and Peyton Manning before the surgery [bust #2]).

I digress, so I do have a few interesting links for you to finish your week up with...

-Being in the field of pharmaceuticals I get asked the same question a lot; "Why do drugs cost so much?"  I could (and will someday soon) explain the situation and my view on how the system works and how I believe it should work.  But until then here is a very well written article to explain some of the dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry.  I disagree with the idea thrown out at the end that the industry will enter an "Ice Age" soon but otherwise it is a very good article. (About 5-10 minute read)

-If you have ever seen those annoying QR codes and wondered what reasonable application they can have, look no further.  Wikipedia is going to start incorporating them into, well, anything and everything!  The Indianapolis Children's Museum is already using them.  I personally think this is a great idea!

-AlphaDog robot project...the video speaks for itself (hint: it's creepily awesome).

-I believe I may have noted about new injection techniques earlier but here is quick article about the advancement of needles and the future of injections.  This is standard IPPH stuff.

-Lastly, if you remember back in the spring there was talk of "alien life" found on earth.  Well, if you are really hurting to waste some time, this review over at PopSci.com is a great look at the debacle that is/was the "new life" form and the subsequent fallout for the scientists involved.

Alright that's all I got right now. Oh and don't forget to Boiler Up this weekend against the Crying Irish of Notre Dame!

Friday Fragments (9/16/11)

So, I apologize for the lack of commitment lately on here.  I have excuse but I will refrain from using them as I know you probably don't care about my excuses.  I don't have too many fragments but I had an hour to kill before my first big presentation in my lab group (on Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation which will be the topic of an upcoming Under the Hood).

-I believe I have said this before but I would so be willing to be one of the first people to colonize Mars.  Well, NASA gave us a look at the rocket that might get us there!

-For all you "green" enthusiasts out there...the most environmentally friendly way to be disposed of when you die is evidently to be liquefied.

-In another AIDS research project, scientists have made kittens glow in the dark.  They used the glowing genes to indicate which cells had the target gene transfected into them.  Overview here....scientific article here.

-For some reason I find this terrifying but evidently you can make a flying, computer hacking drone that is untraceable.

-Recently, the US government has been debating things to cut in the budget.  One of those things is "public science."  Essentially it is governmentally funded research.  This is excellent article explaining the situation and I recommend it to anyone who likes science or politics (warning: it is pro-science, SHOCKER).

-Lastly, the Florida Marlins are going to be renamed the Miami Marlins and Nike has released the Air Mag shoe.  Back to the Future seems like a real possibility now!

UPDATE (per request)

-Miss Universe crowned their winner recently....Miss Angola (you're welcome Lindsey)!

Friday Fragments (8/12/11)

Friday is here again and I have been busy enough that there hasn't been a Fragments for a few weeks.  That doesn't mean that I don't have links.  If anything this edition may be the largest yet!

Before we get into the fragments, Monday will begin the "new" Behind the Bench series featuring other young people in science.  First up will be a few people in pharmacy and will expand from there.  So Jeremy Daniel you're up for Monday.

-Artificial organs are nothing new but that field changes everyday it seems. Two new advances in artificial lungs are quite intriguing.  First, scientists have create the first artificial lung that breathes regular air instead of pure oxygen.  Now people on artificial lungs aren't chained to oxygen tanks.  In related news, read this article about "made-to-order" lungs.  Similarly, scientists are making artificial spinal discs out of biological materials, which would be a better alternative than fusing the discs or metal/plastic discs that degrade and are subject to attack by the host's immune system.

-A few weeks ago I caught a article about the Large Hardon Collider and how close it is to finding the elusive Higgs Boson particle. That would be a major step forward for physics and chemistry (for those of you unfamiliar with the Higgs Boson here's the wiki article to catch you up).

-Work with Microsoft Excel? Check out these cheat sheets. Ctrl Shortcuts, Function Shortcuts, and Misc. Shortcuts. Also, here is your 2011 Excel World Champion.  Yep there is a competition for Excel, Word, and Powerpoint now!

-NC State scientists are experimenting with new memory devices that work like a memristor. They would have the consistency of jell-o and even be implanted into the body!  Creepy.

-In medicine news...another new drug has proven it can prevent HIV infection to a certain extent.  More exciting than that is the prospect of a new therapy that can be used against a broad spectrum of viruses.  Much like antibiotics can kill multiple bacteria, this new therapy attacks a process all viruses have in common. This lack of specificity also may prevent a virus from mutating to avoid destruction.  Lastly, if you ever wondered what I studied as an undergrad student in Industrial Pharmacy, this article describes what's in Viagra. Learning the what, how, and why of these ingredients is a lot of what I studied.

-The Web at 20...take a trip drop memory lane (I'm thinking of you America Online)!

-If you are like any other normal human being, you probably love girl scout cookies.  Well, one box of girl scout cookies could be worth $15 million dollars in graphene.  Don't believe me, check it out!

I think that's enough for now...enjoy your Friday and weekend!

Friday Fragments (7/29/11)

Another Friday, another round of interesting science articles for you to pass the time with.  This week there is wide range of things so there should be something for everyone.

-I love iced tea (hot tea is not my forte but whatever). Now, high school scientists have discovered undisclosed ingredients in many different varieties of teas. That's right, a bunch of high school students under the guidance of a few full-fledged scientists have uncovered that most tea brands that you buy can have unlisted amounts of ingredients. I like this story because they are high school students who are actively participating in research. (Bryan, dare I say 10-year plan?)

-Here's a little office prank you can try...

And I bet this person still gets crappy cellphone reception in their cubicle.

-Scientists in Hong Kong say they have dispelled one type of time travel.  They physics is sound but I still want to believe it can happen someday.  Decide for yourself!

-Want a luxury yacht that actually has a dock of it's own and a volcano?  Of course you do!

The Mousculator

-While we are asking hypothetical questions...have you ever been using your mouse and thought I wish I could do simple math while surfing the internet.  Search no further!  Canon has released the mouse/calculator.  Whew, that's so much easier than using the simple calculator on my computer!

-Test you eyesight on your computer with this awesome optical illusion picture. If you only click one link today, click this one!

-Alright, let's knock out all the big medicine news in one paragraph. Stem cell research was given the go ahead by a judge this week. This is actually a big step for stem cell researchers.  Other scientists claim that a universal flu vaccine can be as close as five years away.  They claim that they can target the parts of the flu virus that hasn't changed over many years, but I believe it may not have changed because we haven't targeted it yet.  Did you follow? (I call shenanigans, but it's worth the effort).  And now there is a new push by a few researchers to classify cancer on a new species.  Interesting idea, I feel like it is a matter of perspective but they intend to prove it so we will see.  And if you are interested in the current state of HIV drugs...here is a quick update from a conference in Rome.

-If you like science movies, watch the following trailer for a web miniseries.  It's called H+ and is about implanting computers directly into humans so we are connected to the internet 24/7.  Scary? Yes. Enticing? Yes. Possible? Maybe someday.

Alright, if that does not at least get you through your lunch hour, then go watch an episode of Teen Mom and get the hell off my blog! But seriously, tell your friends if you like what you read here. Until next week!

Rockstar Status

A few days ago I was sitting around with some friends just hanging out and talking about random stuff.  Of course I was bringing up about every “fragment” that I have linked through this blog and got asked a sarcastic question, “Where do you get all this stuff?”  Good question.

Popular Science is one of my favorite place
to find the latest and greatest scientific
en devours.

I believe every person needs to be well-rounded and that includes having hobbies.  Now I enjoy playing guitar and playing video games (I can’t wait until Assassin’s Creed Revelations comes out), and I have always played sports like baseball, now softball, golf, and table tennis.  But one of my new hobbies has got to be reading about science research and breakthroughs.  Not necessarily the entire research articles but I like perusing the latest news sites for interesting stories.  And that is where I get all that stuff.  Being well versed in all disciplines of science can only help me in my career and life journey through science.

[Side note: I love science and learning how things work.  And I always have believed that everything has an explanation, a reason.  However, the explanation is not always quantifiable.  The best way I think I have heard this described is in The Script song, Science and Faith.  Take a listen and judge for yourself.  If this blog was a myspace page, that song would be playing in the background.]

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are in the elite group of
innovators who have made it into "Rockstar" status.

As I continue to fuel my new found hobby, I have found a whole world of discoveries that the mainstream media misses.  Every once in a while a big discovery makes onto the news, but all the war, politics, crime, and money seems to dilute any opportunity for good news in the research front to make itself known to the world.  My wish is that one day scientists and doctors are held to the same “rockstar” type status as celebrities and athletes.  Not because I secretly want to be a rockstar (that would be pretty sweet), but because they are the ones who deserve some attention for their contributions to society.  And like with all celebrities, the scientists who make great breakthroughs will have both crazed fans and irate objectors…but that’s why it’s fun, right?  Even though it is very unlikely that doctors, scientists, and inventors enjoy the same luxuries as all those artsy folk, we must at least acknowledge all areas of progress before the drive to find the "next big thing" is stalled by the complacency to play basketball or yet another super-hero movie.

Friday Fragments (7/22/11)

HPLC Instrument...looks like fun, right?

I have to keep it short this week but here are a few fragments to get you through the day.  Also, I have been working on a few new ideas and thought I'd give a quick preview...

Under the Hood: High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) - I'll be using this a lot in the near future so writing about it not only relates to my work but also serves as a good refresher course for myself!

New post coming soon - "So you're gonna be a pharmacist? Not exactly."

Reboot of my original series "Behind the Bench."  I am revitalizing this idea to be a little more Q and A and a little less cheesy.  Also, it will hopefully feature both future researchers and pharmacists (so if you are interested let me know).

New post coming soon - "My Top 5 Medical Breakthroughs and How They Can Change The World!"

Alright now to this weeks fragments;

-At a convention in Europe a grad student from Berlin gave a presentation of the shape-shifting cell phone.  Watch the video (about 5 min) but it you are short on time fast forward towards the end and watch the part about bringing your cell phone to "life."  It is particularly entertaining!

PEG can be modified and made in
variable lengths depending on the
task at hand.  

-A team of researchers from Harvard and MIT have developed new synthetic vocal cords from a polymer.  Cool thing is that they used Polyethylene Glycol (or PEG for short) which is already approved for multiple health medical technologies and drug formulations.  Again the video is actually quite neat!

-Completely unrelated to science, Rick Reilly wrote an article on ESPN.com about welcoming Nebraska to the Big Ten.  Unfortunately Reilly used very few actual facts and just proceeded to belittle everyone associated with the Big Ten.  Read his article here, but for a more entertaining (and Boilermaker bias) read this breakdown of his article on HammerandRails.com.

-Rock-paper-scissors statistics. Yeah, it's that important that we do research on it!

Have a great weekend!

Friday Fragments (7/15/11)

Well, it's that time of the week again folks! Do you ever have one of the weeks that seems to have a crazy flow and ebb like a roller coaster? That was my week in a nutshell, but I did get some really interesting micrographs of my new model drug and I hope to share a couple pictures with you, but I need to get approval before I put them up on the web.  Anyway, here are my favorite links of the week...

The trachea grown from a person's stem cells and successfully
transplanted into the patient.

-Scientists in Sweden have successfully grown the first "organ" from a patients own stem cells.  I say "organ" because it is actually the patients trachea, which isn't an organ by itself, but it is a huge step forward. I remember sitting in a lecture hall at Indianapolis my junior year in high school during a field trip for my AP Biology.  A visiting professor gave a 4 hour lecture about Biomedical Engineering and he described how they were growing ears in petri-dishes!  He said the technology was still ten years away at best and here we are 6 years later, did I  mention this is big news!

-Here is a video of a pretty cool optical illusion...of women's faces, enjoy!

-Another video, this time of a guy playing the guitar from inside the guitar.  The strings seem to bounce around in crazy designs, but it's just the rolling shutter of the iPhone.  The camera not the guy is inside the guitar (I know you were thinking it).

Euthanasia Coaster [wikipedia.org]
That's a 1600 foot drop and 7 loops!

-I went to King's Island a few week back and really enjoyed just riding roller coasters instead of blowing my money of carnival games because I was too scared to ride the coasters.  Anyway, I had heard of a new coaster which hopefully will just intrigue you but might also offend you.  It's a concept coaster named "The Euthanasia Coaster" because it kills all of it's passengers.  Yep, it is designed as a form of capital punishment. Basically it makes up blackout then kills you from oxygen deprivation.  Here is an article, and here is the wikipedia page.

-These kilobots from Harvard University are both really cool and a little disturbing because they could eventually rule the world.  And they cost $14 each!

-Earlier this week the space shuttle Discovery had it's last launch and I spent a good half hour looking at space shuttle stuff on the web.  Here's the best link, a 360 panoramic view of the cockpit.  See if you can find the duct-tape job that I could have engineered as a 12 year old! I also think that regardless of what the next space rocket is going to be, it better have a cockpit that at the very least looks like it's from this millennium.

Until next week!

Friday Fragments (7/8/11)

Even though it was a short week because of the holiday it feels like it took forever.  I have managed to get quite a bit done in the lab this week and we have an Ice Cream social sponsored by our AAPS chapter (American Association for Pharmaceutical Scientists) this afternoon.  But, I will take the next few minutes to post some cool links to help get us to the weekend!

-Don't we all hate it when we take a picture and it comes out blurry?  Well no more, I found two different articles on new camera technology that allows you to refocus your picture after you take the picture.  It basically collects all the light data instead of the just the focused data we are used to.  Check out the links...
Lytro Camera - Click here for a demo of the feature
40,000 Lenses - Popscience guide to a similar technology.

-Barcode Art?!  Cool and useless all at the same time!

-The 4th of July might be the king of all BBQ holidays, thus I give you the coolest grill ever!

-New medicine tech; Blue light to cure diabetes. Researchers claim that they have combined flourescense with the ability to combat diabetes.  Also, for my friends who love statistics, new models that have previously been used for stock market fluctuations are being used to help find a cure for HIV.

-If you are really bored, check out this list of scenarios for the future!

-Phase change memory for computers...another great application of amorphous solids!

-Lastly, companies can now run social media background checks.  That means anything you have on the internet (for me that includes this blog, fun fun) but I recommend reading this quick article and checking out the sample report which came back negatively for one Gizmodo.com writer.  Interesting stuff!

Have a good weekend!

Friday Fragments (6/24/11)

Author's Note: I wrote this last Friday and forgot to post it so I hope this can be a little pick-me-up for the Monday Blues this week....

I hope everybody's week has gone well.  I know mine has been an interesting one to say the least.  My car broke down as I was driving someone home from their car breaking down.  They finally transferred the cable in my apartment from Nova Cable to Comcast, which means I'm without cable for the next month or so (no worries I have Netflix).  And out of a possible three softball games I could have played this week, I got to play zero because of the stupid rain.  However, I did received my first new molecule to work on this week and have settled into my office nicely.

Side note about my office: It seems as though the boys and girls have separated themselves within the lab. My office which is on the first floor has myself and three other guys in it, where as the other half of our office space on the first floor is occupied by four or five girls (one is only part time in IPPH, I believe).  It's kind of like being in third grade again.

Anyway, my routine is working nicely into my blogging.  You can only sit and read about drugs for so long before you need to take a little break.  Thus I think you'll find this edition of the Friday Fragments to be fairly robust...

-Researchers in the UK have discovered a vaccine for a specific cancer.  I am not sure about the actual logistics of the situation, but it sounds more like a treatment than a vaccine, because they used a virus to inject prostate cancer presenting antigens into mice, where the immune system took over and eradicated the tumor.  To me that sounds like a treatment or cure for the cancer not a vaccine but whatever, it works!  Check out the full paper here or a brief overview here.

-Here is an awesome graphic showing what happens on the internet in 60 seconds...the volume of emails is the most striking thing to me!

Buzz and Woody Unleashed!

-Ever wonder what Toy Story would be like in a serious setting....check this out! I'm not sure that I would always "have a friend" in Woody if he looked like that ---->

-In electronics news, HP is working on flexible displays to used on wrists during combat.  They also list price tags as a possible use.  I'm thinking it would make great QB wristband.  Also, if you have some time to kill, this is an excellent article about wearable electronics.  I actually had to save the link and read it at home because it looked interesting but it is quite lengthy (so good for wasting time between 4-5pm or Fridays).

-In September 2012, the FDA is mandate that all cigarette boxes have one of nine new warning images to help deter people from smoking.  Some are good, some are gross, and some are just plain cheesy.  Decide for yourself.

-Ok Bryan here is a plug for your blog and what you're good at.  A few weeks ago, my friend Bryan wrote a good post on the Neuroscience of Alcohol over at his blog Mildly Competent.  Well, as fate would have it a came across a similar article written by someone who is paid to write about science stuff.  It discusses the Buffalo Theory and the actual neuroscience of how we react to alcohol.  I would recommend reading Bryan's first and then if you're still interested, you can read the other one.

-Lastly, I found this article about a math proof nicknamed the 3n+1 theory.  Evidently, if you take any number and divide by 2 if even, or multiply by three and add 1 if odd, and continue to do this with your subsequent answers you will always get 2.  However no one has been able to write an actual proof about it until now.  Well kind of, it has been withdrawn since I found the article but it's still fun to contemplate.

Friday Fragments (6/17/11)

Well, I finished up my lab practical assignment for my summer class this morning and I decided to put together the Friday Fragments over lunch today.  I have been trying to get into somewhat of a routine every day and have been able to spend a little time every day in the morning to spend trolling the internet for cool stuff.  So, hopefully this can become a weekly thing and you can just count on checking in every Friday afternoon for some time-wasting links to help you get to the weekend!

-Find your blind spot. For real, every person has a blind spot based on the anatomy of the eye.  Try it for yourself.  It's weird to think you mind just "fills in the gaps."

-New artificial heart gives humans no pulse. This new artificial pump only hums as it constantly pumps blood throughout the body.  So if you check for a pulse, you'll get nothing.  Let's see EA Active track my progress now.

-The weather has been quite awe-inspiring as of late. Click here for a video of a microburst. These are different from tornadoes and only last a minute at the most.  And in Wichita, they had a similar experience only with just heat int he middle of the night.  Temperatures climb 20 degrees in the wee hours of the morning due to a collapsing storm.

-Awesome picture of the nearby universe!  Check it out...

-First living laser. Scientists have engineered cells that give off bio-luminescence to amplify normal blue light into a beam of green laser light.  Now the beam is magnitudes lower than your average laser, but someday you may be able to just point your finger and have a laser beam.

-Lastly, this beach is extremely close to the airport!

Google Chrome OS: One Step Closer to World Domination.

A little over 14 years ago, two graduate students at Stanford working on a project for the University Library came up with the idea for a new search engine based on their work within their studies.  The ability to find things most relevant to what you want was directly associated with how many other "items" that thing is associated with.  Applying this to websites, a search engine was created which has revolutionized the world.  Google was born and immediately became popular around the world for it's simplistic yet powerful tool to find what you want fast. Below is the original Beta test of Google, very similar to the Google of today.

Since that first Beta test, the "Google Machine," as it is sometimes referred, has developed a rapport with the public of unveiling current technologies better.  For example, Google Maps as most definitely overtaken Mapquest as the perferred online and mobile atlas.  Also, Gmail is one of the most common email providers in the world and most people even choose to link their other accounts into their Gmail account.

In 2005, Google started partnering (buying) with other major technological groups.  NASA and AOL/Time Warner partner with Google for an assortment of projects including the NORAD Tracks Santa Project.  In 2006, Google bought YouTube.com and partnered with Sony and Warner Brothers, making Google the epicenter of all things entertainment related.  Just recently Google has unveiled Google Phones which springboard off of Google's simple design and deliver a seamless interface for users.

But now the time has come for Google to take on the computer giants (Microsoft and Apple).  Google Chromium OS, named and based on the Chrome web browser, was released today for all the world to see.  It is exactly what you would expect from Google.  The OS itself is essentially a web browser that is your entire operating system.  It can run within your current OS or on an independent machine.  I have not had the opportunity to try it out nor will I get to anytime soon, but it looks and sounds simple, fast, and secure.  They claim it is ideal for those who spend most of their time on the internet while using their computer.

All these advances lead me to believe that Google's ultimate goal is to rule the technology realm..  Don't get me wrong, I use Google Chrome and Gmail and Google Maps and Google but I'm just sure the world will convert to Google OS like they did everything else.  I mean Windows is still by far the most preferred OS by businesses and universities alike.  There are some conversions to MAC out there, but MAC OS remains primarily a personal OS.  But, we must wait and see!  Check out a review of the OS here.