Most of us greet the news that oil has fallen to US$50 a barrel with a shrug of our shoulders. It goes up, it goes down; no one dies. We fail to engage because we don’t understand what drives it either way, or how it affects us. As with all commodities, supply and demand plays a big part in its price. It peaked in 2008, but the subsequent global downturn saw it experience one of the sharpest drops in history.
Everything from war to the weather influences how much we pay for a refill at the petrol pumps. A contraction in the construction sector creates a fall in demand - and in prices, while striking workers in the oil industry can cause prices to shoot up. When the dollar dips oil becomes expensive, and political instability in oil-producing countries goes hand in hand with price volatility. We take a look at various factors that cause the price of oil to fluctuate.
10 of the World’s Most Beautiful Public Gardens By Miss Cellania, Mental Floss, 29 August 2016.
Your backyard can be a wonderful retreat, but whenever you have the chance, you should visit a large, professionally curated public garden. Here are a few you might not be familiar with, but are worth a trip.
1. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens - Coral Gables, Florida, USA
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens is an education and conservation facility showcasing tropical plants. The gardens are home to over a dozen areas highlighting different ecosystems and species, as well as a research facility and a farm; the facility also offers horticultural classes, hosts festivals, and conducts research projects in 20 countries. For the casual visitor, there are guided tours and tram tours, or you can wander freely as you like. Make sure to stop by the Silbey Victoria pool, which features Victoria cruziana and the Victoria Longwood Hybrid water lilies (pictured above). Native to South America and capable of reaching nearly 2 feet in diameter, these plants are the largest water lilies in the world.
2. Château De Villandry - Centre-Val-De-Loire, France
France's Château de Villandry is a manor house with a nearly 500-year history. It was built in the early 16th century by Jean Le Breton, who was Minister of Finance under King François I (he knocked down most of an old fortress on the site, which dated back to the 1100s, in order to build the manor). He began cultivating the gardens, and 200 years later, the Marquis de Castellane expanded them. Château de Villandry was confiscated during the French Revolution and awarded to Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother, after which it fell into ruin. In 1906, Dr. Joachim Carvallo purchased the chateau and worked to restore the gardens to their former glory. In addition to the imposing chateau, visitors can see the kitchen garden, the cross garden, the water garden, the sun garden, the maze, and the cloud room. The gardens are open every day of the year, but if you can't make it all the way to France, you can still take a virtual tour at the website.
3. Butchart Gardens - Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
In 1904, Robert and Jenny Butchart opened a limestone quarry and cement plant on Vancouver Island. He ran the business; she was the company chemist. Over the next few decades, as areas of the quarry played out, Jenny reclaimed it as a garden. She had tons of topsoil hauled in, and dedicated different areas to garden designs from all over the world, including a Japanese and an Italian garden. Today, all that's left of the original factory is a single chimney; it's been replaced almost entirely by budding flowers and singing birds. Butchart Gardens is now owned by Robin-Lee Clarke, the Butcharts’ great-granddaughter. While opening hours vary, the world-famous gardens are open to the public year-round.
Located about an hour from Dublin, the gardens of the Powerscourt Estate are home to the highest waterfall in Ireland (it's nearly 400 feet tall!). The home on the estate was originally a medieval castle, which was remodeled as a house in the 1730s and reroofed after a fire in 1974. The 47-acre estate contains an Italian garden, a Japanese garden, a sculpture garden, two golf courses, the largest pet cemetery in Ireland, and an extensive forest where you’ll find the Pepperpot Tower, which was modeled after the pepperpot used by Lord Powerscourt at mealtime.
Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss established their home and garden on 53 acres in Washington, D.C., in 1920. Twenty years later, they gifted part of their property to Harvard University, which established Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection; 27 acres went to the government to establish a public park. The facility includes the Bliss’s extensive garden - which includes a rose garden and pebble garden - for their Garden and Landscape Studies programs. The museum is closed for renovations for the rest of this year, but the public gardens are open Tuesday through Sunday from March until the end of October.
The Garden of Master of the Nets is only 1.5 acres, but the home, pond, and garden are crammed with delicate beauty. Originally named Fisherman’s Retreat, it was once the home of Song Zongyuan, an official of the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century. However, the verdant sanctuary was actually established several hundred years earlier. It's tranquil during the day, but at night, performers stage concerts in the garden and in various rooms of the pavilion from March to November.
Cason and Virginia Callaway started the Georgia-based Callaway Gardens in 1952, and the family added lakes, man-made beaches, two golf courses, a large forest area, and hotels over the years. The garden features the Callaway Brothers Azalea Bowl, a 40-acre garden with more than 3000 azalea bushes that come alive every spring. You’ll also find the Overlook Azalea Garden, the Meadowlark Garden, and the Thornhill Hydrangea Garden.
Keukenhof Gardens is a showcase of Dutch floriculture in the spring. The word keukenhof means “kitchen garden,” because the site is where Countess Jacqueline of Bavaria gathered fruits and vegetables for Teylingen Castle in the 15th century. In 1641, Keukenhof Castle was built on the site. In 1949, a consortium of bulb importers proposed to use Keukenhof to showcase flowers, and the already-legendary garden was redesigned. Over the course of eight weeks every spring, Keukenhof displays the blooms of some 7 million bulbs, including 800 varieties of tulips. The gardens will be open in 2017 from March 23 to May 21.
Stourhead is a 2650-acre estate that became a part of Britain’s National Trust in 1946. The estate was established by the Stourton family, who were the Barons of Stourton for 500 years. While the gardens were planted and expanded by several owners, the Arcadian design was the idea of owner Henry Hoare in 1741. He built Greek temples, an artificial lake, a Pantheon, and other classical Greek structures. The gardens are open to the public every day except Christmas.
Adolph and Christine Rosengarten built a country home in Wayne, Pennsylvania, in 1913, which Christine named Chanticleer. They then bought adjoining properties for their two children when they became adults. Adolph Rosengarten, Jr. inherited both his parents’ and his sisters’ properties upon their deaths, and when he died in 1990, he left the entire estate to the enjoyment of the public, managed by the Chanticleer Foundation. The 35 acres of gardens include a 10-mile trail through various themed areas like the Pond Garden and Ruin Garden. Chanticleer is open to visitors Wednesday through Sunday from April 1 to November 1, but admission is only open until the 120-space parking lot is full, so visitors are urged to carpool.
Top image: Keukenhof Gardens. Credit: skeeze/Pixabay.
10 Ways Scientists Messed With Children’s Minds By Allison Gauss, Listverse, 22 August 2016.
We often think of children as pure and untarnished - something to be protected. But when scientists see something pure and untarnished, they just see the perfect test subject. Although many of these experiments are considered cornerstones of modern psychology, they must have led a few parents to say, “You want to do what to my kid?”
10. Bobo Gets A Beating
In 1961, Albert Bandura’s landmark experiment showed that children could learn aggressive or violent behaviors simply by being exposed to them. This contradicted the prevailing view that learning required rewards or punishment.
Bandura worked with three groups of nursery school children. The first group watched an adult showing aggressive behavior toward an inflatable clown called Bobo, kicking and hitting it. The second group observed a non-aggressive adult, who did not engage with the clown. The third group wasn’t exposed to either behavior. Later, the children were left alone in a room with the inflatable doll and several other toys.
The children who had watched an adult being aggressive and violent toward Bobo were much more likely to kick, hit, and attack the clown doll. Exposure to these behaviors made children more likely to adopt them - even if the adult didn’t instruct or reward the child.
9. Who’s That Baby In The Mirror?
In her 1972 study, Beulah Amsterdam of the University of North Carolina kicked off a series of mirror experiments to test children’s self-awareness. Researchers put a spot of rouge on the noses of children aged six months to two years, put them in front of the mirror, and had the child’s mother ask, “Who’s that?”
At 6–12 months old, the children thought they were seeing another baby and approached it. But by 20–24 months, most of the children understood they were seeing themselves and pointed to the rouge on their nose.
In the middle group (about 12–20 months old), many of the children were unsure and even avoided the image. They no longer assumed the baby in the mirror was a new friend, but they didn’t seem to quite understand that it was their own reflection.
In 1933, psychologist Clarence Leuba wanted to determine if laughter was an inborn reaction to being tickled or if children learned from social cues that laughing was the appropriate reaction. To find out, he decided that his new-born son would only be tickled during specified experimental periods.
To prevent Leuba’s own facial expressions from influencing the child, he wore an expressionless mask during all experimental tickling. Even so, Leuba’s son did reliably laugh when tickled. The experiment seemed to be a (slightly creepy) success.
One day, Leuba’s wife supposedly “ruined” the experiment with some unsanctioned tickling of their son after a bath. To collect more data, the psychologist repeated the tickling experiment on his second child, a daughter. This at least ensured that the siblings could save money in the future by splitting the cost of a therapist.
7. Making Babies See The Impossible
In 1985, Professor Renee Baillargeon of the University of Illinois devised an experiment to find out if infants understood the concept of object permanence, which means that an object continues to exist even if you don’t see it. For example, we know that the Eiffel Tower continues standing in Paris even if we aren’t currently looking at it.
Baillargeon showed infants aged 6–8 months a toy car rolling down a ramp with a portion of the car’s path hidden by a screen. Then a solid block was laid next to the track and covered by the screen. Finally, a solid block was laid across the track (blocking the car’s path) and then was obscured by the screen.
Each time, experimenters released the car onto the ramp again. However, they manipulated the final condition so that the car reappeared (even though it should have been stuck behind the hidden block lying on the track). Baillargeon found that infants consistently looked longer when shown an “impossible” event, which means that they realized something was wrong.
6. The Marshmallow Test For Success
One of the most famous child psychology experiments is the Marshmallow Test, led by Walter Mischel in the 1960s. In the experiment, an adult presented each child (ages three to five) with a reward, such as a marshmallow, but then offered the kid a deal.
The adult explained that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while left alone in the room, he could have two marshmallows when the researcher returned. If the child couldn’t wait, he could ring a bell. Then the adult would return, and the child could eat the single treat. About 30 percent of the kids were able to wait for the adult (about 15 minutes) and earn the additional treat.
Years later, Mischel collected data on the participants and found that those who ate their treat quickly tended to have lower SAT scores and higher body mass index levels.
5. The Broken Toy Experiment
What makes a person understand and care that their actions affect others? Grazyna Kochanska and her colleagues at the University of Iowa believe that a child’s ability to feel guilt is an important factor.
To test this hypothesis, an adult researcher showed a toy to a child and explained that it was very important to the adult. Then the child was left alone with the beloved toy, which was designed to fall apart as soon as the child engaged with it. When the adult returned and found the broken toy, researchers recorded the children’s reactions - from avoiding the adult’s eyes to covering their faces with their hands.
In the end, the researchers did let the kids off the hook. The adult returned with an intact copy, saying the toy was fixed. The most guilt-prone kids may have suffered more initially, but Kochanska observed that they had fewer behavioral problems during the following five years.
In 1920, John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner taught a nine-month-old boy known as “Little Albert” to be terrified of fuzzy animals.
When they first presented Albert with a white rat, he was unafraid. But when the researchers brought the animal to Albert again, they paired it with a loud, jarring sound by hitting a steel bar with a hammer. The sound startled and scared the baby, launching him into an emotional fit.
After a few repetitions, the sight of the white rat alone caused Albert to cry and withdraw from the animal. By associating the harmless rat with an unpleasant, scary stimulus, Watson and Rayner created a fear that Albert then generalized to rabbits and other fuzzy animals.
In 1938, University of Iowa Professor Wendell Johnson, a psychologist who had stuttered from childhood, and graduate student Mary Tudor created an experiment to prove his theory that stuttering was a learned behavior, not a genetic condition.
Taking advantage of the university’s relationship with a nearby orphanage, they selected 22 children (ages 5 to 15) for their experiment. Ten children already stuttered, and 12 didn’t. The non-stutterers were split into two groups, one of which was told that their speech was fine. The other group was told by researchers that their speech was abnormal and they must fix it. Furthermore, researchers criticized this second group of children when they misspoke.
The experiment failed utterly. Of the six children in this subgroup, only two became less fluent speakers. Sadly, even though these children did not become stutterers, they did become less talkative and more self-conscious.
2. Will Your Baby Crawl Off A Cliff?
Fortunately, crawling off a cliff isn’t a common risk for a baby. But Cornell University researchers Eleanor J. Gibson and Richard D. Walk put together an experiment in 1959, just in case the situation ever came up.
The scientists wanted to find out if babies could visually perceive a drop like a cliff and if they would refuse to cross it. To safely test the infants, Gibson and Walk built what they called a “visual cliff.” They placed a thick piece of glass over a multileveled patterned base. This gave the illusion that if the infant crawled past a certain point, they would fall.
On the side of the structure that appeared to be empty space, the child’s mother called for the baby to join her. But infants as young as six months both perceived and avoided the visual cliff. It is unknown whether the mothers beckoning their children to crawl off a cliff led to trust issues among the subjects.
1. Growing Up Chimp
In 1931, Winthrop Niles Kellogg wanted to take an animal out of the wild and raise it as a human. This is how his infant son, Donald, ended up with a chimpanzee for a sister, if only for nine months.
The experimenter brought home a seven-month-old chimp named Gua when Donald was 10 months old. Both Kellogg and his wife treated Gua just like their human child and measured both of them in a wide variety of aptitudes, including attention span, problem solving, and memory.
In the beginning, Gua kept up with and sometimes even outperformed Donald. But eventually, her natural limitations prevented her from learning language and other skills. While the exact reason the experiment was ended is up to speculation, its detrimental effects on Donald were probably a factor. The child was slow to pick up new words and even imitated the barking sounds Gua made to request food.
Top image: A photograph taken during the so-called Little Albert Experiment. Credit: John B Watson/Wikimedia Commons.
The infographic below looks at the impact that ‘virtual healthcare’ practices such as hologram house visits and virtual doctor apps could have on the future of the healthcare industry, identifying the potential benefits both for patients and for healthcare professionals.
Tasty Tech Eye Candy of the Week (Aug. 28) By Tracy Staedter, Seeker, 28 August 2016.
An artificial wave lagoon, a robotic caterpillar and a "star in a jar" top off this week's tech gallery.
1. Artificial Wave Lagoon
The Wave Park Group, a Perth, Australia-based company, recently presented a proposal to the city of Melville to turn an existing 54-acre sports and recreation destination into a wave park. The wave lagoon itself would occupy 5.7 acres and become the third park of its kind in the country.
2. Winning Solar Car
This year, University of Michigan’s solar-powered car, the Aurum, won the American Solar Challenge race, finishing 11 hours ahead of the second placed car. The eight-day race began at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio and finished at Wind Cave National Part in North Dakota.
3. Airlander 10 Crashes
What a bummer. After only 100 minutes of test flying, the world’s largest aircraft, Airlander 10, crashed during its second test run. No one was hurt, but the incident certainly delays Hybrid Air Vehicles’ attempt to build a helium-filled cargo ship capable of transporting 22,000-pound shipments around the world.
4. Fast-Flying Drone
Drone-maker Parrot’s new device, the Disco, is meant for people who just want to have fun. The ultralight 1.6-lb drone can fly 50 mph for 45 minutes at a time. Other drones peter out after 20 to 25 minutes.
5. Star in a Jar
Plans for a next generation fusion device were revealed this week in the journal Nuclear Fusion. The research comes from physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and the plans include a US$94 million investment in the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U), a giant fusion reactor that generates energy in a way similar to how stars like our own sun generate energy. Fusion involves subjecting hydrogen atoms to extreme heat and pressure until they fuse into helium atoms. The process creates energy that could be used to power just about everything in the world. Unlike fission, fusion doesn’t create giant amounts of radioactive waste either.
6. Lego-like Proteins Produce Colour Images
By modifying tiny particles that naturally occur in cells, scientists found a way to improve upon ultrasound imaging. The particles are protein-shelled, gas-filled structures called gas vesicles. Caltech scientists developed ways to swap out the proteins on the surface like Legos to get the particles to behave in different ways.
For example, one protein causes the vesicle to attach to a certain kind of tissue cell, say a tumour cell. The scientists also figured how to alter the gas inside so that when an ultrasound image is taken, the particles show up in different colours. The technique could greatly improve a doctor’s ability to pinpoint the location of cancerous cells and target them for removal.
7. Bowl-shaped Stadium Naturally Cools
In Dubai, summer temperatures reach upwards of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Building a soccer stadium that can accommodate 60,000 and keep them cool is no small matter in that kind of heat. Instead of relying on air conditioning to do the job, architects Perkins + Will are designing the Mohammed bin Rashid Stadium with passive cooling features. For starters, the exterior will be made of perforated metal skin that allows air to pass through but keeps out blowing sand. Overhead, a translucent teflon-coated glass awning will reflect 75 percent of sunlight. Beneath the stadium, a large pool of water will cool the air and trees planted on the grounds will block hot winds.
8. Soft Robo-Caterpillar Wriggles
This 0.6-in-long soft robotic caterpillar is made from a material called liquid crystal elastomer, which when shined with a light, moves in different ways. By using a modulated laser beam, scientists at the University of Warsaw were able to make this robotic caterpillar walk up slopes, squeeze through narrow spaces and even push objects that weighed 10 times its own weight.
9. Dyson’s Latest Fan
Dyson’s newest bladeless fan, the Pure Hot+Cool Link, is able to trap 99.97 percent of the smallest airborne particles. Pollen, mould and bacteria are no match for the fan’s 360-degree Glass HEPA filter. The app-controlled device, which also cools and heats the air, can be ordered online starting September 6 for US$599.99.
10. Honeybot Teaches with VR
A new robot being promoted as part of an IndieGoGo project is an interactive, Android-based robot that uses 3-D augmented reality to teach and entertain kids ages 3 to 8 years old. Called Honeybot, the device - designed by Chinese tech company Hui Yu - is meant to snag a child’s attention with its 3-D graphics, image and voice recognition and 200 audio and video programs.
Top image: Rendering of the Mohammed bin Rashid Stadium in Dubai. Credit: Perkins + Will via Designboom.
[Source: Seeker. Edited. Top image and some links added.]
In a laboratory at Oxford University sits the Oxford Electric Bell, which has spent 176 years constantly ringing. And no-one's quite sure what the battery that powers it is made of...
There is a vast, rapidly expanding universe of data out there that is just ripe for the picking. 2.5 quintillion bytes of data or generated each day through a multitude of mediums: social media posts, videos, digital media, business transaction records, cell phone tracking signals, climate sensor feedback, text messages, and so much more. While not all of it can and should be used effectively for small business success, less than .5% of all existing data has been analyzed or leveraged. Data isn't just a big enterprise game; small business can harness it to boost revenue, expand marketing reach, streamline the recruiting process, and help create products or services that customers will truly want. These 10 do's and don'ts can help you embark on a prudent path to data-driven growth.
Gadgets to Help You Stay Cool By K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 26 August 2016.
Guess what? It's still summer for another month, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. This year showed us that global warming is here, and it's spectacular. All major cities have transformed into sweat-drenched hellholes, icecaps are melting, and air conditioning just isn't doing the job anymore.
What will save us from this horrible heat? Why, the same thing that doomed us to it: technology! Humans are obsessed with inventing new gadgets to make ourselves more comfortable, and since the introduction of the first modern air conditioner in 1902 we've been using what we know about thermodynamics to beat back the advances of Mother Nature.
In this feature, we'll share a few gadgets that will drop your temperature. Some are high-tech, others are goofy, but when the weather is this hot beggars can't be choosers.
1. Ambi
One of the best feelings on a hot day is pulling an ice cube out of the freezer and pressing it to your forehead to get a few precious minutes of cooling. But then you have to deal with water all over yourself. The Ambi eliminates that annoying second part. It's a metal cooling plate that uses the Peltier effect to quickly reduce its temperature down to 50 degrees Farenheit. The Ambi is primarily pitched for pain and migraine relief, but there's nothing that says you can't use it for general heat-related discomfort as well. It takes just 25 seconds to activate and uses four AA batteries or an included AC adapter.
2. Armpit Fans
Perspiration is one of the most visible signs of excessive heat, and walking around with big wet stains in your armpits is not a good look. That's what led Japanese company Thanko to develop tiny fans that hide under your shirt to circulate cool air to those problem spots. With three settings, they can run for up to five hours on full USB charge. They look weird, sure, but if they do the job you shouldn't mind looking a little silly. Keep in mind that you'll probably need at least two of them to keep things looking balanced.
3. USB Phone Fan
Does your commute require you to stand on steamy subway or train platforms each morning? Are you attending an outdoor event in the near future where sweating is certainly on the agenda? This little gadget could help. Just plug it into your phone and feel the breeze. Amazon has a number on offer for just a few bucks.
4. Evapolar
Air conditioning is sort of an "all or nothing" affair - either you cool down a room or you don't. The makers of the Evapolar device are out to change that with a small box they call the first "personal air conditioner." The machine doesn't use any chemical coolants; instead a nanomachine filter slowly absorbs liquid from a tank, which then cools air blown out from a fan. The whole thing is about the size of a small cooler and uses barely any electricity, making it an environmentally conscious way to cool your desk or cubicle.
5. G2T Electric Scarf
When it's hot out, the last thing you want is to put on more clothing. Especially not a bulky neck collar like the G2T from MOAI Electronics. Just a minute, though, buddy, because this weird little gadget might be your best friend once it hits shelves. Heat may feel like a whole-body sensation, but there are actually specific points on your body that have an outsize effect on your perception of temperature. The G2T harnesses the sensitivity of the neck to deliver a powerful heating or cooling effect. It runs off a small battery that fits in a jacket pocket and really seems to work, dropping overall body temperature by several degrees.
6. BedJet
In some parts of the country, the temperature drops when the sun goes down, letting you sleep in cool comfort. Everywhere else, you might want to buy a BedJet. Cooling devices for your bedding have been around for a while, but this space-age setup is the most extreme. A slick-looking fan device pushes cold air through a tube into a special AirComforter sheet, bringing your bed down to your ideal temperature. It can also do hot air, but what monster wants to do that? At US$469, it's not cheap, but considering you spend a third of your life in bed, that's a decent investment.
7. Geizeer
The traditional air conditioner is a serious power hog. They work, sure, but your electric bill suffers for it. The makers of the Geizeer cooler are aiming to upend that paradigm, with a personal AC that costs just a penny a day to operate. It uses a separate ice pack that you keep in your freezer, and when you're ready to use it you open the box and put it in. The internal fan distributes the cold air slowly and steadily in a localized area. It won't replace your clunky old wall unit, but it's great for a desk or small room.
8. Spin Chill
Is there anything better on a sweltering summer day than a cold beverage? We doubt it. But if your bottle isn't as icy as you'd like it to be, the Spin Chill can help. This innovative device uses convection to rapidly transfer heat out of a beverage bottle and into ice in a bucket, spinning it wildly around in a circle as it does it. One would think that would be a recipe for a foamy beverage, but amazingly it doesn't seem to. It takes less than a minute to bring a room-temperature brew to icy cold refreshingness.
Top image: BedJet Climate Comfort System. Credit: BedJet.
