Guantanamo Detainee, Now Free After Six Years, to Sue George Bush

Al-Jazeera journalist imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay to sue George Bush

Sami al-Haj – freed in May 2008 after more than six years – to launch legal action against former US president

An al-Jazeera journalist who was imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay plans to launch a joint legal action with other detainees against former US president George Bush and other administration officials, for the illegal detention and torture he and others suffered at the hands of US authorities.

The case will be initiated by the Guantánamo Justice Centre, a new organisation open to former prisoners at the US base, which will set up its international headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month.

link: Pan-African News Wire: Al-Jazeera Journalist Imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay to Sue George Bush

Extinct Images of Vanished Giants: BibliOdyssey

'Extinct Monsters; a Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life' was first published in 1893 by Reverend HN Hutchinson, featuring illustrations by the respected wildlife artist, Joseph Smit (& others).

link: BibliOdyssey: Extinct Monsters

The Bathos of Gravity: Simon Faithfull

Jessica Griggs writes:

Since childhood, Simon Faithfull has had a problem with gravity. Why could flies crawl across the ceiling when his feet always stayed firmly earthbound?

This fascination never waned. Now an artist, his recent work revolves around his attempts to escape gravity's relentless grip.

Gravity Sucks, an exhibition at the British Film Institute in London from 17 July to 20 September, showcases all seven of Faithfull's attempts. He admits that his first "Escape Vehicles" – including a miniature rocket-powered chair and a boiler suit attached to 50 helium balloons – were "complete heroic failures, or actually not even heroic, more like damp squibs".

But this is his point – Faithfull is interested in the pathos inherent in so many human attempts to escape gravity. Flying is a common fascination for many of us, he says, but drawings of Victorian flying machines and the stories of Icarus, with his melting wax-based wings, and Franz Reichelt, the tailor who jumped to his death from the Eiffel Tower in 1912 to demonstrate his home-made parachute, seem simultaneously absurdly comic and pathetic.

link: Gravity sucks: An artist examines life's weighty side - science-in-society - 20 July 2009 - New Scientist

Vinyl and Print: Parallel Cases?

TechDirt writes:

One of the more interesting trends in the music world is the “return” of the vinyl LP. While sales of CD’s continue to fall in the face of digital downloads, vinyl LP sales continue to rise:

Consumers purchased 1.88 million new vinyl LPs in 2008, an 89 percent increase over 2007 and the highest sales volume recorded in the 17-year history of Nielsen SoundScan. Further, in good news for some physical retailers, two out of three vinyls LPs were purchased at independent record stores.

There are a number of reasons for this, but the most obvious is that the LP is a tangible object that can’t be easily reproduced and can only be shared through a physical, real-world exchange. For true fans, the LP is a sort of badge of fandom, proof of just how much you love the band. Compared to a digital download or a CD, the LP is a crafted thing, complete with large-scale artwork and often other inserts.

While it isn’t likely that LP sales will eclipse digital downloads anytime soon, it is also highly unlikely that the LP market will be undercut by piracy.

Could these same factors be a forecaster for the future of printed books and newspapers? It is hard to imagine that these items, so easily digitized, will be able to maintain their current position on top of the mountain and we are already seeing the rapid decline of the newspaper business.

In the cases of both newspapers and books, it might be that their only hope in surviving over the long-term is to invest in elements that can truly not be pirated.

link: Can Print Be The Next Vinyl? | Techdirt

The Small Rain Down Can Rain: Drops on your Head--How Big, and Why?

We might never consider the size of the raindrops as we hurry for cover, but their variety has puzzled scientists for many years.

Now, by filming one falling raindrop, researchers in France have explained why the drops are an array of so many different sizes.

continue at the link: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Why raindrops come in many sizes

The Computer Becomes You: Clicking with your Mind

Sandra Blakeslee writes:

Learning to move a computer cursor or robotic arm with nothing but thoughts can be no different from learning how to play tennis or ride a bicycle, according to a new study of how brains and machines interact.

The research, which was carried out in monkeys but is expected to apply to humans, involves a fundamental redesign of brain-machine experiments.

In previous studies, the computer interfaces that translate thoughts into movements are given a new set of instructions each day — akin to waking up each morning with a new arm that you have to figure out how to use all over again.

In the new experiments, monkeys learned how to move a computer cursor with their thoughts using just one set of instructions and an unusually small number of brain cells that deliver instructions for performing movements the same way each day.

“This is the first demonstration that the brain can form a motor memory to control a disembodied device in a way that mirrors how it controls its own body,” said Jose M. Carmena, an assistant professor of computer and cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the research.

The experiments were described Monday in the journal PloS Biology.

The results are very “dramatic and surprising,” said Eberhard E. Fetz, an expert in brain-machine-interface technology at the University of Washington, who was not involved in the research. “It goes to show the brain is smarter than we thought.”

link: Researchers Train Minds to Move Matter - NYTimes.com

Red Wine v. White Wine: Which is Healthier?

Summer is the season for chilled white wine. But does red hold the year-round advantage when it comes to good health?

For the (inconclusive) findings, click through the link:

Really? - The Claim - Red Wine is Better for You Than White. - Question - NYTimes.com

Book Review: "Stormy Weather--The Life of Lena Horne"

John Simon writes:

Inside her, there were two Lena Hornes: the one who fiercely asserted herself, and the one who belittled and berated herself. Viewed from the outside, there were two more: the one who had an impressive career and was a seemingly model freedom fighter; but also the one who could have done so much more, yet, capitalizing on light skin color and great looks, truckled to white society.

There is good reason for James Gavin’s “Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne” to take up — when you count the notes, bibliography, discography, filmography and index — nearly 600 pages. This Lena (or these Lenas), born in 1917 and still hanging in, has had a life so rich in ups and downs as to make page after page eventful and suspenseful. This all the more so since the book is also two books in one: a thorough and fluent biography and a history of the slow social rise of black people despite crippling discrimination and stinging humiliations — a history in which Horne’s story is embedded, notwithstanding some personal jumps ahead.

link: Book Review - 'Stormy Weather - The Life of Lena Horne,' by James Gavin - Review - NYTimes.com