Scientists have created the first 'humanoid' robot that can mimic the facial expressions and lip movements of a human being. 'Jules' - a disembodied androgynous robotic head - can automatically copy the movements, which are picked up by a video camera and mapped on to the tiny electronic motors in his skin. It can grin and grimace, furrow its brow and 'speak' as his software translates real expressions observed through video camera 'eyes'. The project, called 'Human-Robot Interaction', was devised at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), run by the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol. Want to know .....read more »

Performing at the 2007 Mirimar Marine Corp Air Station in San Diego, California. From flickr: Superbug Superfast. The white halo is formed by condensed water droplets which are thought to result from a drop in air pressure around the aircraft. It appears that the transonic fighter jet is flying close to, but not exceeding, Mach 1, it is not breaking the sound barrier. On flickr you can see a lot more pictures of the sonic envelop: Pushing The Sonic Envelop. Here is a video of the same phenomenon: F-18 Super Hornet - MCAS Miramar Air Show 2008 from Rapier55 on Vimeo. ..read more »

The very first truly blue roses have gone on display in Japan and will be on sale to the public next year. After 13 years of research the Japanese Suntory company have finally perfected the mythical flower. Working with the Australian company Florigene the researchers took the delphinidin gene, which creates the blue colour, from a petunia. They then inserted it into a mauve rose called the Cardinal de Richelieu. The resultant flower was a dark burgundy colour due to an excess of the blue pigment cyanidin. After using RNAi technology to reduce this the final blue rose was today unveiled at the .....read more »

The 56th edition of Encephalon, the mind & brain carnival, is now up over at Combining Cognits. ..read more »

The next Grand Round is up at MDOD. It's the first hosting on MDOD of the grand round and a nice one, have fun.... ..read more »

Very creative visual effects. This is the story: In 1969 14-year-old Jerry Levitan "armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. The films website: I Met The Walrus Thanks presentation zen ..read more »

An aerial view shows the market square of the southern Bavarian town of Weilheim, Germany painted with a copy of Russian-born French Expressionist Vasily Kandinsky's painting 'Weilheim-Maria's square'. 500 mostly students have been working on it for three weeks. Here is the painting form Kandinsky which he made in 1909. There is a website on this project with more picture, Ein Kandinsky fur Weilheim. You can see more pictures of his work on Flickr: Kandinsky In a recent post on this blog as a fan of Kandinsky, I wrote about Synaesthesia and Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky in whom musical tones elicited specific colours, was a tone-colour .....read more »

What is it with psychiatrists and photography. Something comparable to psychiatrists and detectives? As you may well have noticed Dr Shock photo's can be viewed on Flickr, at least some of them. Another Belgian psychiatrist on his blogroll does the same. Well may be more on this topic of psychiatrists and photography later. Psychiatrists are not the only one posting photographs. Photo posting has also become one of the most apparent components of identity performance on profiles of social network sites. Why do individuals post and comment on photos on the Internet? It can be done to enhance interaction and relationship formation. But .....read more »

Instead of hiking I went biking in the rain. Also visited one of the nicest museum of The Netherlands: Kroller Moller Museum.With a beautiful sculpture garden. You can see some of them on Flickr. The one with this post is a depressed soldier? ..read more »

The wonderful Nellie McKay sings "Mother of Pearl" (with the immortal first line "Feminists don't have a sense of humor") and "If I Had You" Became a fan of her since Clonie ..read more »