Monthly Archives: March 2014

Heart Healthy

A heart beating outside of a body in a vat of mystery liquid seems like an old pulp horror story. But not today! Today it’s life-saving science!

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Or at least it will be in 10 to 15 years. That’s a rabbit heart, kept beating with a revolutionary electronic membrane that was custom-fitted to it via 3-D computer imaging topography taken of the heart while it was still within the rabbit.

Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Washington University in St. Louis created this flexible and stretchy circuit-lined membrane, which in the future may be used as a minimalist, bespoke internal defibrillator for people with heart conditions.

Additionally, the device functions as an artificial pericardium, which is the natural membrane which covers the heart. According to materials researcher John Rorgers, “But this artificial pericardium is instrumented with high quality, man-made devices that can sense and interact with the heart in different ways that are relevant to clinical cardiology.”

It’s alive! IT’S ALIIIIIIIIVE!!

What Sparks Our Fire: Live-saving heart healthy technology.

Do you think this is a good improvement to existing internal defibrillation products?

Viral Schmiral

So by now, if you have an internet connection, you’ve seen the black and white video of beautiful people awkwardly kissing over an acoustic indie song. It’s awkward, and cute, and thought provoking, and totally an advertisement for WREN, but we’re not going to talk about that right now. However, for purposes of narrative symmetry, here’s the video that’s been all over every single one of your feeds.

The video itself has just shy of 60 million views, and it’s always increasing. The reasons for the virality of the content are hard to pinpoint. Some reasons could be the inherent desire that people have to see intimate and personal moments captured on video, the fact that all the people in this video are very very pretty, the vague subversiveness of including gay, lesbian, mixed-race, mixed-age couples in addition to the young heterosexual couples, or any number of things related to those reasons. Whatever the cause, the video strikes just the right resonant note with many, if not all who watch it.

And almost everyone is tired of it. The purity of the video has come and gone, the parodies have come and gone, the analysis of the video has been beaten into the dust by feminists, sociologists, and advertising apologetics and haters. That’s the trouble with highly viral campaigns. There is a huge amount of interaction in the first days of the campaign, and then interest slackens off and dies. But hey, we’re talking about it, so maybe it’s working more than we think.

Here’s a video of puppies.

What Sparks Our Fire: We like viral videos, but we like it more when they go away.

What do you think made this video go viral?

Mass Displacement

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Most of the time on this blog, we cover things that are technologically significant, or trending, or culturally relevant in some way. However, sometimes we just like to show you something cool. This is one of those times.

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That is what is known as a Hydrofloor, a pool masquerading as a floor, or vice versa. The pool water is always there, but the floor can be raised or lowered through it to create a dry area above the water. There’s something so natural about it, as if the structure blends with its surroundings better because of its’ transitional, amphibious nature. This is the kind of thing you’d buy a house just to be able to install.

What Sparks Our Fire:  Sometimes, it’s just cool things.

Do you feel the Hydrofloor accentuates or takes away from the natural scenery?

 

Rome Wasn’t Built In a Day

And neither was NYC. The subway alone was built in many days, most of them taking place over ninety years ago.

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Let that sink in for a moment.

In fact, most of the city’s infrastructure is at least 50 years old, according to the latest report from the Center For an Urban Future, which has the troubling title of Caution Ahead. Some highlights are century-old water mains which lose about a quarter of their capacity to leaks, the 84 year old sewers, the sexagenarian homeless shelters and schools, and the 60% of cargo facilities at JFK that are unfit for modern screening, storage, distribution. Troubling news, to say the least, especially for those who depend on those systems of infrastructure every day.

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This is not surprising for an old city such as New York. However, according to the creator of the study, there is no reason for panic. Rather, Adam Forman said the major concern right now is bringing maintenance to the forefront of the city budget: “It’s time to refocus our capital programs and bringing things into a state of good repair, not just building new things.”

What’s important to remember is while the urban decay is troubling, there is no reason to worry as of yet. Many of these infrastructures remain serviceable and in working order, so there’s no need to find a new way to get to work in the morning. Rather, the report is meant to spur action on the part of the city and investors, to focus on the future of the city.

What Sparks Our Fire: Our city is old, and full of stories. We should maintain it so that we can keep making new ones.

Do you see signs of urban decay in NYC?

We’re a Little Wired

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I love coffee. Like, seriously love it. Like, three Starbucks venti’s a day love it. Generally this doesn’t affect me much at all, which may be symptomatic of something, but mostly it means I don’t generally keep track of the amount of caffeine I put in my body. However, with the new app by Jawbone, I’m genuinely terrified. I downloaded UP Coffee yesterday and used it to track the amount of caffeine I had throughout the day. Not just coffee, but teas, chocolate and candy, energy drinks, and even certain medications up the intake, and according to the app I should have exploded yesterday. The interface is very easy, and it’s so much to play with the interactive little flask on the homepage.

What Sparks Our Fire: Literally me. I was giving off heat.

Does anyone know a good doctor?