Now that Avatar has shattered every record in the book and has become a global phenomena, the time has come for research and studies! Why is it people are feeling depressed and/or suicidal when leaving the theater? Actually, according to research about “Awe”, a movie like Avatar should find the majority of viewers feeling creatively juiced, socially connected and perhaps even a little spiritual.
Elicitors of awe include mountain ranges, cathedrals, powerful leaders, music, scientific theories, encounters with God, natural disasters, and James Cameron films. For me, Avatar induced awe in response to both the exhilarating fictional world but also the artistic and technical achievements I knew were required to create that world.
In a 2007 paper, Michelle Shiota, along with Keltner and Amanda Mossman, reported experimental findings on the effects of awe. In one study, people described recent experiences of either awe or happiness. Reliving an awe-inspiring event was more likely to make people to go outside for a hike after the experiment, or to do something creative like play an instrument or write. Further, subjects instructed to recall a recent encounter with beauty in nature said they felt the presence of something greater than themselves and felt connected with the world around them. Another group of subjects, after staring at a 25-foot Tyrannosaurus skeleton for one minute were more likely than people who stared at an empty hallway to use universal terms such as “a person” or “an inhabitant of the Earth” to describe themselves; they saw themselves as members of a larger group.
In regards to the sadness subjects reported in that study, the authors write, “It is not impossible that the discovery of the limits of the self during a self-transcendent emotional experience may produce some negative emotions.” Hence post-Avatar suicide-watch? If watching acrobatic cat people uplink their ponytails and fight giant exoskeletons in 3-D for two and a half hours doesn’t make you want to run outside and play or at least write some erotic Na’vi fan fic, I think you have bigger problems back here on Earth than just not having a tree house and a hot blue girlfriend.
Ever since the radio was invented, humanity has inadvertently beamed signals into the outer reaches of space. Every broadcast radio and television show ever aired is currently venturing across the universe, carrying our cultural signal to potential alien life that may or may not have the ability to decipher our strange entertainment.
However, with the dawn of satellite technology, Earth is broadcasting considerably fewer signals and as such, our planet has become nearly silent.
While old-style TV transmitters might generate one million watts, the power of a satellite signal was around 20 watts. Satellites also aimed their transmissions at the Earth, with almost none being allowed to escape into space.
Use of cable prevented the leakage of signals even more effectively.
”Now the actual amount of radiation escaping into space is about two watts, not much more than you get from a cell phone,” said Dr Drake.
”If this continues into the future very soon our world will become undetectable. Using ourselves as an example, it means the difficulty of finding other civilisations will be much greater.
”We’re going to have to search many more stars and many more frequencies.”
Any alien civilisations that existed were likely to be far more advanced than ours, he said. Their analogue TV age probably came and went long ago, before humans even thought about searching the sky for signs of intelligent life.
If you’re looking for a new line of work and have plenty of time ahead of you, then you may want to begin focusing on a career as a Space Pilot. Essentially the future version of an airline pilot, space pilots are set to be in high demand within 20 years, according to a study from the British government.
Potential jobs of the future will include more farmers of genetically engineered crops and livestock, specialists in climate change reversal, and personal branders who will help individuals to establish their own brand across social networking sites.
In addition, it predicts that police officers will be needed to monitor weather manipulation, and electronic waste data managers will be employed by people who do not want to be tracked online.
The report was commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills.
One of my pet peeves in life is when my Rock Band wireless guitar runs out of battery juice mid-way through a song. Yes, I’m well aware that isn’t much of a pet-peeve, but hey, it’s annoying. If new research is any indication, I may be able to plug the guitar into my t-shirt and eek out a little more time.
Scientists have successfully turned ordinary fabrics like polyester and cotton into batteries without hindering the flexibility of the fabric. Basically, fabric is dipped into an “ink” of microscopic carbon tubes and what follows is magic:
The idea is the same as that outlined in their work with plain paper; the interwoven fibers of fabrics, like those of paper, are particularly suited to absorbing the nanotube ink, maintaining an electrical connection across the whole area of a garment.
Cloth is simply dipped into a batch of nanotube dye, and is then pressed, to thin and even out the coating.
The fabric maintains its properties even as it is stretched or folded. Even rinsing the samples in water and wringing them out does not change their electronic properties.
“Our approach is easy and low-cost while producing great performance,” Professor Cui told BBC News.
“Fabrics and paper represent two technologies with a thousand-year-old history. We combined ‘high-tech’ – nanotechnology – with traditional ‘low-tech’ to produce new applications.”
The next step is to integrate the approach with materials that store more energy, in order to create more useful batteries. By combining the approach with other electronic materials in the ink, the team believes even wearable solar cells are possible.
After watching this video and seeing what average nerds are now capable of doing with easily attainable technology (a Takara Tomy i-SOBOT), I can’t help but wonder how far off is some James Cameron -esque Skynet/Terminator style future where we’re forced to perform silly tricks for our robot masters?
The BMW Lovos concept car, which runs on solar generated power, looks like it just escaped from some far-future racing videogame or Transformers 3. It also looks like it would hurt like hell to be a pedestrian in the way of this beast. So what are all those strange metal plates? Those are the solar-cells; solar-cells that can turn and follow the sun for maximum efficiency.
The exterior of the Lovos – which stands for Lifestyle of Voluntary Simplicity – concept is theoretically constructed from just one fully exchangeable part that recurs 260 times. Each exterior piece is covered in solar photovoltaic cells and can hinge on a substructure underneath to follow the sun or act as individual airbrakes. We can only assume the concept would be powered by electricity.
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