Jan 09
American futurism gets pretty dark during bad economic times. Many people start to see technology as the enemy, like they did in the 1930s and 1970s
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Dec 23
Get your Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind references ready, because scientists have just figured out a way to erase bad memories using—you guessed it—electroshock therapy. Get ready for on-demand forgetting. It’s a real thing now.
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Nov 29
Those damn dot-commers are still mucking up San Fran, parents are passing along their dangerous pedestrian ways to the next generation, a giant suitcase is an eyesore in Red Square, and—sigh—we’re all so lonely. These things and more are What’s Ruining Our Cities.
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Mar 20
It may not look like much, but this digital clock is actually the most depressing and horrifying timepiece I have seen. Made by artist Tom Schofield, the clock doesn’t tell the time. Instead it’s a visualization of the Doomsday Clock, a metric of global disaster made by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Tom calls his creation the Neurotic Armaggedon Indicator. It’s neurotic because the clock’s other half is a server that constantly checks the home page of The Bulletin to find out the status of the Doomsday Clock. In truth, the Doomsday Clock is only adjusted every couple of years or so based on input from scientists and other authoritative sources.
Originally founded by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin tracks the dangers posed by man-made technologies – like nuclear power – as well as environmental factors like climate change. The closer it is to midnight, the closer we are to wiping all of humanity. Yep, we’re at 11:55 p.m.
I hope they never come out with a personalized version of the Doomsday Clock.
[via Popular Science via The Presurfer]
Feb 23
This Eavesdropping App Calls Your Shrink If It Thinks You Sound Too Bummed-Out
Posted in: Today's Chili
Ain’t no problem that can’t be solved by an app. At least, that’s what it seems like the folks at EI Technologies are out to prove. Their app “Xpression” aims to help treat depression by listening to a user’s voice, cataloging his or her moods, and alerting a doctor of any dangerous dips. All automatically. More »
Feb 15
Lab rats have it bad enough having to jump through hoops and perform in order to be studied, but now life just got worse for the furry rodents. Scientists at Japan’s Waseda University have created a robotic rat designed to terrorize their organic lab rats, inducing stress and depression so their reactions can be studied.
Scientists need to depress rats in order to do things like test drugs for depression. I guess it’s hard to make a rat depressed, but with a robot rat harassing them constantly, they will be sad sacks in no time. The robot can be programmed to chase or attack a rat, or can become its only source of food.
Talk about psychological torture. These rats will be really bummed out and soon they will fear robots just like us.
[via Gizmodo via IEEE Spectrum via Geekosystem]
Jun 26
Stress breeds depression. Anecdotally, we all know that’s the case, but scientifically speaking it’s been a hypothesis that has until now remained unproven. A new study, however, reveals that chronic stress affects us at the genetic level, in turn creating very real brain changes associated with depression. More »
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