$1 US == $1 Canadian

The exchange rate for the two currencies hit 1:1 today.

Wow. Last time I was paying attention, a Canadian dollar was worth something like 80-85 cents in US currency. But in the past few years, the US dollar has been steadily weakening, while the Canadian dollar has been getting stronger.

Visual malfunction

Wow, you’ve got to take a look at this illusion.

Seattle resident makes environmental statement

Last Wednesday, a sea lion wandered out of Puget Sound and climbed on top of a Toyota Prius.

Mystery of the “short” cappuccino

Maybe this is nothing new to those for whom Starbucks is a daily routine, but I only drink coffee very occasionally. I always found it curious that the smallest drink on the Sarbucks menu is called "tall", until one day I heard the stranger in front of me order a "short" cappuccino. The barista didn’t hesitate to fill the order from a stack of short cups that had been just out of sight. So if you only want a smaller, cheaper coffee, just ask.

Remote control people

Scientists are able to use electromagnetic stimulation of the inner ear to force people to walk in specified directions, even against their will. I’d read about this being done with lab rats a few years ago, but it now works on humans too. Interesting, weird and scary.

 

Read the article here.

More on cultured meat

I was going to post this response in the comments of the earlier entry, but I thought these points were worth making more visible.

 

The ethical issues seem pretty one-sided to me: growing cultured meat could avoid mistreating and killing billions of animals. We’re not talking about growing mutant animals here (no beakless featherless immobile chickens), but just tissue cultures grown without any brains or other organs attached.

 

Also it’s far more efficient as far as resources consumed to grow the meat, produces less pollution, and results in a product that is potentially much healthier.

 

As far as the nastiness of eating "manufactured flesh", I admit it does sound a little weird. I suppose I wouldn’t be the first person in the world to try it. But I wouldn’t hesitate for very long if I heard good things about it.

 

Progress is inevitable. Your great grandchildren (or great grandneices & grandnephews for those who decline to further crowd the planet) will think of this stuff as normal.

Cultured meat, no animal required

Scientists could grow cells from the muscle tissue of cattle, pigs, poultry or fish in large flat sheets on thin membranes. These sheets of cells would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked to increase thickness and resemble meat.

Read the full story here.

 

I wonder, would this ‘meat’ be Morrow-approved?

If you thought my cat was big…

Meet Hercules, a thousand-pound liger! Read the article and check out some more pictures.