Google Ventures. Interesting.

violent-buddhist:

The Quietest Place on Earth Will Drive You Insane Within 45 Minutes

There’s a small room in Minnesota thatblocks out 99% of all external sound. That’s an impressive number! Also impressive: nobody can take more than 45 minutes alone in the room before they go nuts.

The Daily Mail describes Orfield Labs’ anechoic chamber—perfect for making extremely sensitive audio measurements. But also perfect for sending you into a hallucinatory hell so hellacious you’ll need a chair:

‘When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You’ll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly. ‘In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.’ And this is a very disorientating experience. Mr Orfield explained that it’s so disconcerting that sitting down is a must. He said: ‘How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechnoic chamber, you don’t have any cues. You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you’re in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair.’

That sounds swell. Just the serene quiet of you, your thoughts, and the unceasing pounding of the human heart. Your brain can’t take it, apparently, and begins to fabricate sounds that aren’t really there—completely delusional noises meant to block out the churning of your own horrid biomass.

(Source)

(Source: leilockheart)

topherchris:

I’m proud to annouce the launch of Shit Panelists Say in tribute to a panel I’m on today about Metamemes with experts in the field.

(If you like, please submit some shit panelists say.)

smarterplanet:

Bionic Eye Expected To Let The Blind See By 2014 - PSFK

With over 285 million visually impaired people in the world, research into restoring vision for the blind is well past its critical stage. But with innovations in technology, and by turning to a focus to even just restoring rudimentary vision, research suggests that a more expansive solution is on the near horizon. Better yet, it’s a solution that may serve as the foundation for something much more instrumental, for many more people.

A team of electrical engineers at the Monash Vision Group (MVG) of Monash University in Australia has had early success in doing just that. The group has been laboratory testing a new microchip that will be used to power a bionic eye. With pre-clinical assessments due to begin shortly, the team’s encouraging results suggest that the project is on track to deliver a direct-to-brain bionic eye implant ready for patient testing by the year 2014.

via PSFK: 

The floating apple in the big apple. #nyc (Taken with instagram)

I ate its little pie face right off. #yum #foodviolence #nyc (Taken with instagram)

Washington Heights, NYC. #WhereImFrom #Roots (Taken with instagram)

chickmakesflicks:

(via While Everyone Was Freaking Out About “Girls,” There Are Zero Films By Women At Cannes - The Frisky)

howtomaketea:

Keep calm and make tea.