GM's Vibrating Seats Might Be More Startling Than Accidental Drifts

It's designed to make driving safer, particularly after a long day at work or a tiring road trip, but GM's haptic seat technology that lets you know when you start unintentionally changing lanes might be even scarier than the drift.

The system uses a windshield mounted camera to monitor the lines on the road when the vehicle is traveling faster than 35 miles per hour. And when it detects a lane change without the turn signal being used, it will cause the driver's seat to vibrate on either side so they know which direction they've started to drift and can immediately correct it. And as an added bonus, straddling two lanes with a vehicle could provide a relaxing massage, even if at the cost of enraged drivers around you. [GM]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/gms-vibrating-seats-might-be-more-startling-than-accid-487187374

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Some Disassembly Required: Exquisite Teardowns of Everyday Machines

There's an art to a good teardown. Todd McLellan, a Toronto photographer who?s disassembled everything from pianos to iPads, has perfected it.

McLellan is the son of a carpenter and an electrical technician, so he was born into a world of assembly drawings and spec diagrams. In his career as a commercial photographer, he works on campaigns for new cars and gadgets. But as an artist, he takes them apart. He works without user manuals, and often without special tools, figuring out how things are assembled as he goes. At the end of the process, he arranges the innards on a white canvas for documenting, like a naturalist archiving an interesting specimen.

That?s actually an apt metaphor, since McLellan is drawn to older, outmoded technologies?like vintage lawnmowers and typewriters?which he sees as more interesting than the gadgets we use today. ?I have a very keen interest in finding out how things work,? he said a few years back. ?I can just imagine the hands that put them together with such precision. We don't get the same thing out of current technologies and the product now don't last nearly as long.? Slowly but surely, he?s working his way up to bigger objects?his dream? To take apart a full street car.

A book of McLellan's photographs, called Things Come Apart: A Teardown Manual for Modern Living, comes out at the end of the month. In the meantime, an exhibit of the same name is on view this month at Chicago?s Museum of Science and Industry?check it out until May 19. Can't make it in person? Here are some of our favorites:

[Things Come Apart via NPR and the Museum of Science and Industry]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/some-disassembly-required-exquisite-teardowns-of-every-487106890

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U.K.'s Channel 4 to Sell Ads for BT Sports Channels - The ...

LONDON -- U.K. telecom giant and pay TV service operator BT has inked a three-year exclusive deal with broadcaster Channel 4 to partner on advertising sales for its group of sports networks.

BT recently agreed to acquire most of ESPN's U.K. channels and is set to launch BT Sport 1 and BT Sport 2 this year to compete with pay TV giant BSkyB in the field of sports programming.

Channel 4 emerged with the ad sales contract, believed to be worth around $47 million (?30 million) and up to $62 million (?40 million) if the BT Vision pay TV service hits certain subscriber growth targets, after a competitive tender process. Observers said it included Channel 5 and even BSkyB.

BT said the broadcaster's experience in third-party ad sales for brands such as UKTV, Box TV and PBS America helped it win the contract.

In addition to placing TV ads around the BT Sport programs, which include 38 exclusive live Barclays English Premier League soccer matches, Channel 4 will be charged with looking for program sponsorships and will "explore opportunities for product placement." Marc Watson, CEO of TV, BT Retail, described BT and Channel 4 as a "great fit."

Jonathan Allan, director of sales at Channel 4, said: "Alongside the Channel 4 portfolio, UKTV, Box and PBS, the addition of BT?s premium sports content gives us an unrivaled ability to target young and up-market audiences."

BT Sport has also secured the rights to live top-tier matches from Serie A soccer in Italy, Ligue 1 soccer in France, Brasileiro in Brazil and Major League Soccer in the U.S. BT Sport will also show exclusive coverage of all 69 live rugby union games from the Aviva Premiership.

Plus, BT?s acquisition of ESPN?s TV business in the U.K. and Ireland will bring the rights to show live games for the FA Cup, Scottish Premier League, Europa League and the German Bundesliga.

The BT Sport channels will be based at the iCITY development at the Queen Elizabeth Park in Stratford in Eastern London.

BSkyB CEO Jeremy Darroch said earlier on Thursday during his company's latest earnings conference call that he felt Sky Sports was well positioned ahead of the launch of the BT sports networks.

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/uks-channel-4-sell-ads-450919

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Primate hibernation more common than previously thought

May 2, 2013 ? Until recently, the only primate known to hibernate as a survival strategy was a creature called the western fat-tailed dwarf lemur, a tropical tree-dweller from the African island of Madagascar.

But it turns out this hibernating lemur isn't alone. In a study appearing May 2 in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers report that two other little-known lemurs -- Crossley's dwarf lemur and Sibree's dwarf lemur -- burrow into the soft, spongy rainforest floor in the eastern part of Madagascar, curl up and spend the next three to seven months snoozing underground.

By comparing the hibernation habits of eastern dwarf lemurs and their western counterparts, researchers hope to shed light on what sends hibernating animals into standby mode, and whether lemurs -- our closest genetic relatives known to hibernate -- do it differently from other hibernating animals.

"Exactly what triggers hibernation is still an open question," said lead author Marina Blanco a postdoctoral researcher at the Duke Lemur Center.

Unlike animals such as bears and ground squirrels, which hibernate to survive the cold, western dwarf lemurs hibernate to survive during western Madagascar's long dry season -- a time when temperatures top 85 degrees, trees drop their leaves and food and water are in short supply.

But the hibernation habits of Madagascar's eastern dwarf lemurs, whose homes include high-altitude forests where winter temperatures occasionally dip below freezing, were poorly known.

"It's a very different environment," Blanco said.

To find out more, Blanco and her colleagues trapped and fitted the squirrel-sized animals with temperature-sensitive radio collars before the start of the hibernation season, allowing them to find the lemurs' underground burrows and monitor their body temperature once hibernation began.

Hibernating animals tend to breathe more slowly, drop their heart rate and lower their body temperature, becoming inactive for days at a time. Dwarf lemurs are no exception.

"To the casual observer, it looks for all the world as if the animals are dead. Their bodies are cold, they are utterly still and they take a breath only once every several minutes or so," said co-author Anne Yoder, director of the Duke Lemur Center.

Western dwarf lemurs hibernate in drafty tree holes, where their body temperature fluctuates by as much as 20 degrees with the outside air. But the researchers found that eastern dwarf lemurs keep their body temperatures more constant in cozy underground burrows.

The research suggests that lemur hibernation -- and therefore primate hibernation -- may not be so different after all. "Maybe these lemurs, though they live in the tropics, look more like temperate hibernators than we thought," Blanco said.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University.

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Journal Reference:

1. Marina B. Blanco, Kathrin H. Dausmann, Jean F. Ranaivoarisoa, Anne D. Yoder. Underground hibernation in a primate. Scientific Reports, 2013; 3 DOI: 10.1038/srep01768

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/-sjUziR3kh0/130502094759.htm

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Feathered Dinos Were Diverse Like Darwin's Finches

Flightless feathered dinosaurs with parrotlike beaks and long, skinny claws that scampered around North America may have been the Darwin's finches of the Late Cretaceous era.

Fossils of at least five species of vegetarian birdlike dinosaurs known as caenagnathids have been found from West Texas to Canada with wide variation in their beak shapes and body size, giving scientists clues about how the small creatures could coexist by carving out different dietary niches.

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was famously inspired by the diversity of beak shapes among finches on the Galapagos Islands, which he took as a sign that the birds had somehow adapted to the specific environments where they lived. More recent research has shown that Darwin's finches can evolve quite quickly. For instance, one species shrunk its beak size to better compete with another bird for small seeds in a mere two decades. [Avian Ancestors: Dinosaurs That Learned to Fly]

Millions of years ago, different species of caenagnathids may have similarly adjusted their beak size across western North America.

"Each species has a different beak structure. You could have a lot of different species in one environment, because they ate different kinds of foods, which is how different species of Darwin's finches coexist," Nicholas R. Longrich, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University, said in a statement. "So, in a way, the evolution of modern dinosaurs ? birds ? provides insight into ancient, extinct dinosaurs."

Fossil collectors in Texas recently found a new species of the turkey-sized dinosaur, dubbed Leptorhynchos gaddisi, in the Aguja Formation near Big Bend National Park. The 75-million-year-old remains of this species suggest it had a more rounded chin and a less upturned beak than its Canadian relative, Leptorhynchos elegans. The short deep mandible of the new species also suggests it ate tougher, more fibrous plants than its neighbors known as Chirostenotes and Caenagnathus, researchers say.

"These are subtle differences, but they mean we're dealing with different species," Longrich said. "If you look at modern birds, one of the things that distinguishes a crow from a raven, or two types of albatrosses from each other, is the beak proportions. We can do the same thing with dinosaurs that we do with modern birds, and identify them using beak shapes."

Considering that small dinosaurs have a poor fossil record in North America, having at least five known specialized species of caenagnathids ? some of them living side-by-side ? suggests the group had relatively high diversity, the researchers say.

The findings were detailed April 26 in the Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feathered-dinos-were-diverse-darwins-finches-124335359.html

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SD tribe faces ultimatum on sale of massacre site

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) ? A small patch of prairie sits largely unnoticed off a desolate road in southwestern South Dakota, tucked amid gently rolling hills and surrounded by dilapidated structures and hundreds of gravesites ? many belonging to Native Americans massacred more than a century earlier.

The assessed value of the property: less than $14,000. The seller's asking price: $4.9 million.

Tribal members say the man who owns a piece of the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is trying to profit from their suffering. It was there, on Dec. 29, 1890, that 300 Native American men, women and children were killed by the 7th Cavalry in the final battle of the American Indian Wars.

James Czywczynski, whose family has owned the property since 1968, is trying to sell the 40-acre fraction of the historic landmark and another 40-acre parcel for $4.9 million. He has given the Oglala Sioux Tribe until Wednesday to agree to the price, after which he will open it up to outside investors.

Earlier this month Czywczynski said he had three offers from West Coast-based investment groups interested in buying the land for the original asking price. He didn't return calls this week to The Associated Press seeking information about the prospective buyers.

The ultimatum has caused anger among many tribal members and descendants of the massacre victims.

"I know we are at the 11th hour, but selling this massacre site and using the victims as a selling pitch is, for lack of a better word, it's grotesque," said Nathan Blindman, 56, whose grandfather was 10 when he survived the massacre. "To use the murdered children, the murdered teenagers, the unborn, women screaming and running for their lives, using that as a selling pitch ... that has got to be the most barbaric thing ever to use as a selling pitch."

Czywczynski acknowledges the historical significance adds value to each parcel of land, which have each been appraised at less than $7,000 apiece, according to records reviewed by the AP.

Besides its proximity to the burial grounds, the land includes the site of a former trading post burned down during the 1973 Wounded Knee uprising, in which hundreds of American Indian Movement protesters occupied the town built at the massacre site. The 71-day standoff that left two tribal members dead and a federal agent seriously wounded is credited with raising awareness about Native American struggles and giving rise to a wider protest movement that lasted the rest of the decade.

The land sits on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, but many of the descendants of the massacre victims and survivors are members of several different Lakota tribes, said Joseph Brings Plenty, a former chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and a traditional chief.

Brings Plenty said the tribes are not in a position to pay millions of dollars for the land. Although tribal members are not opposed to development that would preserve, beautify or better educate the public about the land and its history, they are opposed to commercialization, he said.

"You don't go and dance on grandma and grandpa's grave to turn a hefty dollar sign," he said.

Tribal members and descendants have reached out to President Barack Obama to make the site a National Monument, which would better guard it against development and commercialization, Brings Plenty said.

But even if an outside investor buys the land with intent to develop, there will be obstacles, said Craig Dillon, an Oglala Sioux Tribal Council member. The tribe could pass new laws preventing the buyer from actually building at the site.

"Whoever buys that is still going to have to deal with the tribe," Dillon said. "Access is going to be an issue. Development is going to be an issue. I'm not threatening anybody, but my tone is be aware you have to deal with the tribe if you purchase it."

There are nearly 2,500 national historic landmarks across the country, with the vast majority of them owned by private landowners, said Don Stevens, chief of the History and National Register Program in the Midwest Region for the National Park Service.

"We advocate for preservation and we always express concern about potential harm for their care," Stevens said, adding that the NPS does not have any legal authority.

Still, a site can lose its designation if it does not retain its physical integrity, he said. One example is Soldier Field in Chicago, which lost the designation when it was remodeled a decade ago because it changed its physical character.

As for the Wounded Knee site, Stevens said any development could potentially affect the Historic Landmark designation.

"Certainly you would hear a hue and cry about that type of thing," he said. "And certainly if we saw something going up, we'd express our concern, even if we don't have a legal jurisdiction to intercede, we'd express our concern."

___

Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sd-tribe-faces-ultimatum-sale-massacre-070615402.html

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