Future Ben

Welcome to the new home of Imagenode and NYCSparkworks! TwinS and Ray needed professional workspace and I needed art and storage. Admittedly I am the financial junior partner on this, but I won’t need the same kind of floorspace those two use. Plus U will contribute to infrastructure as much as I can.

It’s weird that I started in living in that area so many years ago to have a live/work space. In those days all I did was build out my loft. Now when I actually need workspace I live in a little studio in Manhattan

So interfaces with EEG have been around for a while. But since the technology to make and analyze EEGs are getting it was time somebody did something inane with it.
From ReadWriteWeb

Technically, what Wilson did was come up with an interface combining an Electroencephalogram, or brain wave monitor, with an on screen keyboard for selecting letters. The system lights up each key on the keyboard but is able to notice a difference in brain activity when the desired letter for input is lit. Wilson compares it to clicking through multiple letters when texting on a mobile phone.

Once you’ve found a new way to input text – what are you going to do with it? Use it to Twitter, of course!

Clearly hooking stuff up to your brain is awesome and using it for some Web2.0 action is hip. But a lot of other fine work has been done.
Eva Lee Creates literal emotional landscapes in video using EEGs of volunteers. Not a direct harnessing of the EEG, but with a deeper meaning perhaps.

Also EEG has been explored as an interface for music

EEG is not the most elegant method our there, but it is less bulky than fMRI or EMG. Until we have cheap room temperature micro SQUIDs Expect to see continued experimentation for low bandwidth applications.

Its good to know that no matter where you go or what you do, you will never be as badass as a 4ft long polychaete worm coated with nematocyst stingers. Barry, you are the, “Shaft” of the animal kingdom. Thank you for putting things in perspective.

From the Daily Mail

Aquarium staff have unearthed a ‘giant sea’ worm that was attacking coral reef and prize fish.

The 4ft long monster, named Barry, had launched a sustained attack on the reef in a display tank at Newquay’s Blue Reef Aquarium over recent months.

Workers at the Cornwall-based attraction had been left scratching their heads as to why the coral had been left devastated and – in some cases – cut in half.

After staking out the display for several weeks, the last resort was to completely dismantle it, rock by rock.

Halfway through the process the predator was revealed as a four-foot polychaete worm.

Staff eventually lured it out with fish scraps, but not before it bit through 20lb fishing line.

The tropical worm is capable of inflicting permanent numbness on humans with its sting.

Matt Slater, the aquarium’s curator, said: ‘Something was guzzling our reef but we had no idea what, we also found an injured Tang Fish so we laid traps but they got ripped apart in the night.

‘That worm must have obliterated the traps. The bait was full of hooks which he must have just digested.’

He added: ‘It really does look like something out of a horror movie. It’s over four feet long with these bizarre-looking jaws.

‘We also discovered that he is covered with thousands of bristles which are capable of inflicting a sting resulting in permanent numbness.’

Damn I have to geek out here for a minute. I am listening to this dude give a tlk on the lambda repressor. It’s been 20 minutes of rambling about how life is just mass action and kinetics. He has the smug confidence of a man who doesn’t know how dated he is. Denying Systems Biology is the new Inteligent Design.

Seriously, just because you figured out that the Cancer field is mostly bullshit doesn’t make you Linus Pauling!

Now Len Girrenti is talking about Sirtuins. Makes sense that Sir2 in year and worms points to a working Sir2 in humans.
“I don’t know of caloric restriction will make you live longer, but it will sure feel like it did”. Ha!

I guess the whole point of taking resveratrol is to pretend like you are living like a yogi. Awesome!

Sirt1 stimulates BDNF production. Who is taking a systems approach? There must be a bunch of people.

It makes me think about going all out on aging. That field is never going away.

It’s a rainy day. When it’s like that outside I find little things to do around the lab.

I have a series of surgeries next week so I better get all my scissors sharp and organized!