Adam Polak at The Software House published an interesting overview piece on the state of software architecture approaches available in 2021, complete with design patterns, case studies, and micro-services.
Researchers at UCL conducted a study where participants trained themselves to use a robotic third thumb which was desisgned by the Royal College of Art. Users of the thrid thumb control its movement using their toes. The UCL study measured brain activity of participants after time using the thumb and found that the brain's representation of the hand had changed.
Aquarius Engines in Israel have developed a small single piston engine that runs on hydrogen, without the need for a more complicated hydrogen fuel cell. Applications for the clean burning engine with a small 10kg footprint are being explored by Nokia to power remote communicatinos towers.
Researchers in Australia conducted a memory test study where participants were asked to remember and recite a list of butterfly names. Using ancient aboriginal story telling techniques to encode knowledge, one group in the study were taught how to construct a story around the names. Another group were taught how to use the memory palace technique to remember the names, and the control group were left untaught.
The Irish Times published a piece this week about Percy Ludgate who is believed to be Ireland's first computer scientist. In 1914 the accountant and inventor from Skibereen presented designs for the worlds second analytical engine, a mechanical computer of the time.
Slow TV is a TV format popular in Norway that shows scenes or movement at the rate at which you experience them or that they happen naturally, as opposed to the speed of normal TV. Examples of Slow TV are long slow train journeys, watching sheep grazing, or a log fire burn in real time.
On an excellent recent episode of his Where Is My Mind? podcast, Niall Breslin interview Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergency Programme. They cover a range of topics connected to mental health such as the lack of preventative health provision and the pressure of modern society not meeting the needs of people.
