Category Archives: Science And Society

Business, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, Weird

Sexbots

7 Comments

The technology continues to improve:

Realbotix has recently fitted its Harmony models with a new “vaginal sensor”. This enables the machine to respond to tempo and pressure before producing its own response. Brick previously told us: “Now they have developed a vaginal sensor for inserts they put in to the doll, the robotic body, and now as you thrust into the sensor when you’re having sex the sensor is a reactive strip, that sends the stimuli to the brain, to tell it how deep you’re going, how hard you’re going and how hard you’re thrusting. “Now you have all of that information coming into the AI and it’s calculating and responding appropriately.”

What could possibly go wrong with that?

Business, General Science, Health, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Aging Brain Decline

4 Comments

Thwarting a protein reverses it in aged mice:

The team used two techniques to block VCAM1: One of them genetically deleted the protein from the mice’s brains. Another injected an antibody that binds to it to stop anything else attaching. Both methods prevented signs of brain aging in young mice infused with old plasma and reversed existing markers in elderly mice brains. The researchers then gave the mice learning and memory tests. In one, which involves remembering which of several holes is safe to drop through, treated elderly mice performed as well as youngsters once fully trained. “The aged mice looked like they were young again in terms of their ability to learn and remember,” Dubal says. “It’s remarkable.”

Faster, please.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

The Mann Lawsuit

25 Comments

We have filed a petition to the Supreme Court to grant a writ of certiori.

[Mid-morning update]

National Review has filed as well. Their petition is here.

[Update mid-afternoon]

A reminder that we have 24 amici curiae in this. I suspect they’ll join the petition, and Mann will remain amiciless.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I also see that in re-reading that (I may have noted it at the time), that they misspell “warm mongers” in citing the blog post, and attribute my Jerry Sandusky comment to Mark Steyn, who was quoting me.

[Friday-morning update]

Here’s the press release from CEI. And the Daily Caller has a story on it.

[Bumped]

General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Global Heating

5 Comments

Our children will never know what snow in Yosemite in mid-May looks like.

This has been an unusually wet winter, even in southern California. We got quite a bit of rain here early Sunday morning, with more showers expected in the next couple days and this weekend (Memorial Day!). The new growth, including in the burn areas up the coast north of Malibue, is tremendous. It’s still green, and will be into June or July, but it’s going to make a lot of fuel when the rains stop in late summer and fall. If every winter was like this one, we would no longer be living in a desert. That’s the kind of climate change I could definitely get behind. But we’d still be stuck with our crazy voters and government.