The Atlantic asked a dozen scientists, historians, and technologists to rank the top innovations since the wheel. The resulting list includes the printing press (1430s), the Internet (1960s), anesthesia (1846), and alphabetization (first millennium B.C.)
Check out all 50 here.
The CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., Chip Bergh, discussed fashion and sustainability at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference on Tuesday, claiming that jeans do not need to be washed; the pair he donned during the conference, he said, had “yet to see a washing machine” in the past year.
(via Mashable)
A new paper published by the National Marine Mammal Foundation in the scientific journal Current Biology sheds light on the ability of marine mammals to spontaneously mimic human speech. The study details the case of a white whale named NOC who began to mimic the human voice, presumably a result of vocal learning.
“The whale’s vocalizations often sounded as if two people were conversing in the distance,” says Dr. Sam Ridgway, President of the National Marine Mammal Foundation. “These ‘conversations’ were heard several times before the whale was eventually identified as the source. In fact, we discovered it when a diver mistook the whale for a human voice giving him underwater directions.”
As soon as the whale was identified as the source, NMMF scientists recorded his speech-like episodes both in air and underwater, studying the physiology behind his ability to mimic. It’s believed that the animals close association with humans played a role in how often he employed his ‘human’ voice, as well as in its quality.
Researchers believe NOC’s sonic behavior is an example of vocal learning by a white whale. After about four years, NOC’s speech-like behavior subsided.
“When NOC matured, we no longer heard speech-like sounds, but he did remain quite vocal,” Ridgway said. “While it’s been a number of years since we first encountered this spontaneous mimicry, it’s our hope that publishing our observations now will lead to further discoveries about marine mammal learning and vocalization. How this unique ‘mind’ interacts with other animals, humans and the ocean environment is a major challenge of our time.”
Ridgway co-authored the paper published this week with Drs. Donald Carder, Michelle Jeffries and Mark Todd. Dr. Ridgway has 48 years of experience in marine mammal medicine and research. Colleagues often call him the “father of marine mammal medicine” because of his development of dolphin anesthesia, medical technology, and discoveries aiding marine mammal care.
Dr. Ridgway has served on the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Marine Mammal Commission, on four different committees of National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, and was elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America for his studies on hearing of marine mammals and as a fellow of the American College of Zoological Medicine for his work on marine mammal medicine.
How this unique “mind” interacts with other animals and the ocean environment is a major challenge of our time.
(via NMMFoundation)
To celebrate Rubik’s Cube’s 40th birthday, Google’s created this interactive doodle. Try not to waste your whole day there. (BONUS: Use the cube to create some 808 drum machine grooves here.)
When I was about nine or ten, I was one of those kids who could solve Rubik’s Cube in under a minute. People thought we were savants. In reality, were were just relatively good at reading technical manuals. I remember locking myself in my room for a weekend with this now-vintage book, going superdeep, reading the thing word for word, and finding total peace. It was the most intensive study of anything I’d ever done up until that point in life. In hindsight, it’s probably the first observable sign of the ADHD:
When I emerged, I was a genius.
Happy birthday, old friend. Life starts now.
Made our annual visit to Harold’s to celebrate the five-year anniversary of this. Still feels like yesterday. But probably only because we were beginning each other’s sentences before we even met. Full story here.
↑ The earthquake chair!
