PinkOnBrown Webzine

UK company designs injectable bone

2009-01-05T23:38:18Z

A company in the UK, named RegenTec, has developed a new “injectable bone” that can quickly seal bone fractures and aid in quick healing. They inject the white “proprietary” substance into the break site, and the body’s temperature causes the substance to solidify into a “living bone”-like material.

Injectable Bone isn’t the only bone glue out there. Others exist, although they have some problems. In some cases they harden in a solid mass or raise body temperature at the injection site enough to damage nearby tissue.

Injectable Bone could actually encourage bone growth, when bone-producing cells and growth-encouraging drugs are mixed in with the powder mixture. The cells fill up the holes with natural bone as the Injectable Bone degrades into lactic acid, a compound produced naturally by the body.

Full story from Discovery News

Dino Party

2009-01-03T10:17:17Z

Here we have a large herd of puffy cookie dinosaurs, huddling closely on a plate. Note the detailed markings and unique skins of these creatures! I’d sure like to send these puppies into digextinction. Ah! These dinos look a bit more resiliant, and not really tasty. But they are no match for eujean2’s 2008 Dino Party! Just look at that volcanocake. Genius work! You deserve to be the new champion of the most time ever put into creating and destroying dinosaurs award. At least in my book.

Chaotic Vegan Sugar Skull Cookies

2009-01-02T04:03:26Z

I thought I’d share these vegan sugar skull cookies that I made for the ladies of Chaos Cafe et al not too long ago. They were lots of fun to decorate and were yummy, too! (especially if they got the chance to sit for a day or so)

Recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. Key ingredient- Ener-g egg replacer for both and fresh squeezed lemon juice for the frosting.

Human babies are born to interact with numbers

2008-12-31T13:08:48Z

Studies on infants have shown that human children seem to have an innate connection with numbers. Scientists showing children varying objects noted a larger change in interest when showing children varying numbers of objects rather than varying types of objects.

Brian Butterworth, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London, has spent much of his career teasing out which bits of humans’ understanding of numbers are innate—and which learnt, and how. He thinks people are born with brain circuits that are dedicated to recognising and understanding the number of items in small collections. On this foundation an entire “number sense” is built, as children realise that bigger and bigger numbers can be reached by adding “one more” and learn by experience how these bigger numbers behave.

Full story from the Economist

Drawdio - draw some sound!

2008-12-31T07:09:52Z

This weekend, Amber Case and I assembled a very nifty device - the Drawdio. The Drawdio is a simple device that allows you to attach a very simple circuit-board to a pencil (or any other object) to make bizarre theremin-like sound on everyday objects. It works by using the graphite in the pencil and your touch to complete a circuit and generate the sound.

Here is a nifty video of all of us playing around with the nifty device:

It is very simple to construct from the kit we ordered - all we needed to get was a new soldering iron…my current iron had no tip or replacement screw. We assembled it pretty quickly and had a blast for days messing around with the little squealer. There is also an excellent flickr photoset of the project night - wearable computing, Drawdio, a magnifying glass, and popcorn…what a night!

The Drawdio was developed by Jay Silver of MIT’s Media Lab. The Media Lab is responsible for awesome projects like the MPEG-4 SA project which helped to standardize digital sound on personal computers, and eInk - the digital paper/ink replacement. Jay also developed the ok2touch, a jacket that encourages human touch by making noise when making contact with skin.

Amber has more coverage over at Nerdabout Portland. There is also some more information on the Drawdio over at the Makerlab blog.

Sasquatch Sighted at Blazer Game

2008-12-31T08:29:26Z

The Portland Mercury Blog just posted a video from Saturday’s Portland vs. Toronto pre-game introductions where Seski Sasquatch makes an appearance on the court, reaching for a high five. Every player ignored him, except Joel Przybilla, who cautiously tapped the creature’s hand. (link)

What a beautiful display of cross-creature tolerance, Przybilla. Its a shame that other people persist in denying bigfoot exists, even while he stands amongst us! I love how the kids are eyeballing him the whole time. They know.

You can even catch up with Sasquatch issues and the Republic of Cascadia Bureau of Sasquatch Affairs over at Zapato Productions International.

The Private Lives of Your Favorite Toys

2008-12-30T05:29:10Z

Say “Hebbo” to Tarvuism!

2008-12-31T02:16:29Z

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pirate Party membership gains momentum

2008-12-27T20:41:01Z

The Swedish Pirate Party has been gaining new members at a fantastic pace. Starting out with absolutely no support and the opposition of the media, the infamous group has been growing steadily beyond the bounds of what was initially thought to be a small interest-group. In recent polls, it seemed that they have the support of 21% of the entire population of Sweden.

Aside from the support in this poll, more people have joined the party recently. During the last quarter the membership count increased by 50% - from 6000 to 9000 - which makes the party larger than the Green Party which currently holds 19 seats in the Swedish parliament.

The Pirate Party is focused primarily on intellectual property reform, transparency in governing and the privacy rights of online users. Hopefully they get enough support to bring in some parliamentary seats in the next election. They look like they have enough support, and having a political party like this in power can only mean good things for information freedom.

Full story from TorrentFreak | Pirate Party of the US

I love Etsy.com

2008-12-26T08:04:42Z

So, The good Dr. P. Fenderson and I were each scouring the intertubes for some good hot dog images that we might then be able to adorn with a respectable mustache. We did a fair amount of searching and yielded minimal results. Until finally I stumbled across an Etsy Seller that had already imagined, painted, and sold our vision almost exaclty. I just felt she deserved a nice POB plug for being such a visionary by painting processed meat products with classy facial hair.