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The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no...

Have you noticed that nobody loves modern churches? Nobody. I mean NOBODY.Seriously. Have you ever met anyone who sees a church like this and and heard them whisper, “I just love that church! It is so inspiring!”.No. Never.Have you ever gone into a “worship space” like this and heard someone say how awed they were to be in the presence of God? I doubt it.  That’s because these buildings were not designed to inspire awe or to remind you about the presence of God. They are people centered, not God centered. They are auditoria not temples.There is a gut level...

Brain Bath: A Clever Design Solution by Brian Thomas, M.S. * What makes sleep so mentally refreshing? University of Rochester neuroscientist Jeff Iliff addressed the crowd gathered at a September 2014 TEDMED event and explained his amazing new discoveries.1 The words he used perfectly match what one would expect while describing the works of an ingenious designer.2 Other organs rely on the lymphatic system to remove metabolic waste that builds up in the spaces outside cells, but no lymph vessels exist behind the skull. Since the brain uses a fourth of all the body’s energy, there must be some other...

The daughter of former Republican presidential nominee John McCain is adamant she isn’t about to join daytime chat show The View and instead is too busy enjoying the new life she has made for herself in Los Angeles, including a new job and settling into a fabulous new apartment that she has just had decorated.

This homemade revolving shotgun design seems well suited for a 3D printed/hybrid metal version.    While the version pictured uses cut off chambers from cast off 12 gauge barrels, the same effect could be accomplished by using sections of the appropriately sized water/gas pipe or tubing.  The same tubing/pipe could be used for the barrel.  The concept would be that the 3D printed parts would comprise the cylinder into which the chambers would be fitted and glued, and which would have the more difficult mechanical details to revolve the cylinder.   Perhaps a modification of the zig-zag revolver design by Yoshitomo...

Like most independent US automakers in the 1950s, Studebaker -at that point already in business for over 100 years, producer of Conestoga wagons that conquered the American west, and an automobile manufacturer since 1905- was simply unable to compete with the Big Three's economies of scale, access to capital, and profit-crushing price wars. The result was companies like Nash, Hudson, Packard, and Studebaker being forced to seek a merger in order to survive... So as Mitt Romney's old man did when he created AMC/Rambler out of Nash and Hudson, Studebaker teamed-up with ultra-luxury Packard, consolidated manufacturing, and eliminated redundancies. Yet...

Taking the publication of Stephen Meyer's bestseller Darwin's Doubt as his news hook, our colleague the University of Texas, El Paso, mathematician Granville Sewell smartly answers a good question: What do you have believe if you're NOT a proponent of intelligent design? Writes Dr. Sewell in an El Paso Times op-ed: So what do ID proponents believe? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to state clearly what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design. Peter Urone, in his 2001 physics text "College Physics" writes, "One of the most remarkable simplifications in physics is that...

Six days into the launch of insurance marketplaces created by the new health-care law, the federal government acknowledged for the first time Sunday it needed to fix design and software problems that have kept customers from applying online for coverage. The Obama administration said last week that an unanticipated surge of Web traffic caused most of the problems and was a sign of high demand by people seeking to buy coverage under the new law. But federal officials said Sunday the online marketplace needed design changes, as well as more server capacity to improve efficiency on the federally run exchange...

What if your home could protect itself from dangerous weather  by retreating underground automatically long before it hits? If you think about it, a house -or entire neighborhood/town- that could withstand higher winds than boxy, frail wood structures -and actually hide underground if necessary- could have one heck of a lot of applications: not just in tornado alley, but avoiding fires in California, tsunamis in Japan, or of course hurricane season in the Carolinas. Why build an expensive underground shelter only to watch your house and belongings be scraped from the face of the Earth, washed-away, or turned to...

The dawn of Software as a Subscription is now upon us. You have to pay $30 a month, or $240 a year, for the privilege of using the latest Photoshop version, called Photoshop CC. Or, if you want to use the full Adobe suite, you’ll pay $600 a year.

Researchers and observers have long recognized that birds and various other flying creatures change the positioning of their body structures in flight in order to perform specific maneuvers or adjust their aerodynamic profile to accommodate changing flight conditions. This adaptive orientation of body shape has been dubbed “morphing” in the popular literature. The words “morph” and “morphing” are actually digressive forms of the word “metamorphosis,” which derives from the Greek “meta” (to change) and “morfe” (form). This is an apt description of the ability that birds possess to change the form or geometry of their bodies for increased maneuverability, as...

High Scalability has a fascinating article up that summarizes a talk by Robert Graham of Errata Security, summarizing the development choices needed to support 10 million concurrent connections on a single server. From a small data center perspective, the numbers he is talking about seem astronomical, but not unbelievable. With a new era of Internet connected devices dawning the time may have come to question the core architecture of Unix, and therefore Linux and BSD as well. The core of the talk seems to be that the kernel is too inefficient in how it handles threads and packets to maintain...

Starship Musings: Warping to the Stars by Paul Gilster on May 2, 2013 by Kelvin F.LongThe executive director of the Institute for Interstellar Studies here gives us his thoughts on Star Trek and the designing of starships, with special reference to Enrico Fermi. Kelvin is also Chief Editor for the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, whose latest conference is coming up. You’ll find a poster for the Philosophy of the Starship conference at the end of this post.Like many, I have been inspired and thrilled by the stories of Star Trek. The creation of Gene Roddenberry was a wonderful...

Guide to Personal 3D Printers 3D Systems’ Cube 3D There is an emerging new category in the gadget world. The products are called 3D printers and although still evolving, they are becoming relatively affordable and quite workable. The term and the idea of a personal 3D printer came from the work of two MIT grad students who in 1995 modified an inkjet printer to deposit layers of plastic in a process sometimes referred to as additive manufacturing. RepRap was also early on the 3D printer scene with an open source 3D printer project that helped inspire an early 3D printer...

A Pennsylvania teenager has figured out a way to not only promote conservative values, but also pay his college tuition – he’s creating his own business. Bryan Thomas, from Mars, Penn., is the founder of “Patriot Type,” a graphic design business that specializes in patriotic typography. And he did it without any help from the federal government. “I’m trying to promote patriotism and conservative ideas through graphic design,” the 18-year-old told Fox News. Thomas said he draws inspiration for his artwork from the Founding Fathers. Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/patriot-type/2012/07/19/young-conservative-launches-patriotic-business#ixzz216C7ovDl

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A teenage girl's sense of style got her in trouble at the airport. Vanessa Gibbs, 17, claims the Transportation Security Administration stopped her at the security gate because of the design of a gun on her handbag. Gibbs said she had no problem going through security at Jacksonville International Airport, but rather, when she headed home from Virginia. "It's my style, it's camouflage, it has an old western gun on it," Gibbs said. But her preference for the pistol style didn't sit well with TSA agents at the Norfolk airport. Gibbs said she was headed back home...

2011 Hyundai Equus On most cars, you only need to press the preset button that was used to save the desired radio station. But on the Equus you need to use voice commands or wade through five steps using the multifunction controller. 1. Starting on the frequency-indicator screen, push the controller knob to the left to highlight the menu. 2. Turn the knob to select "Presets" from the menu. 3. Push the knob down to confirm the selection. The screen displays the station preset list. 4. Turn the knob to highlight the desired preset. 5. Push the knob down to...

When Local Motors won DARPA's XC2V private "crowd-sourced" competition about 14 weeks ago, they secured the right to build a prototype that could eventually serve as a next-gen military vehicle for U.S. armed forces. Not a lot of time! As you can see, however, they delivered. The fruits of their labor are on display above. Now, while a new kick-ass military vehicle is cool, the true goal of DARPA's competition was to see how much faster a crowd-sourced project could go from concept to prototype than traditional means. Turns out the answer was "much faster," with Local Motors completing their...

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A one-of-a-kind natural diamond with the design of the Star of David has been discovered, Hidabroot TV revealed. Hidabroot TV, Israel’s first Jewish-oriented television station, broadcast a YouTube video explaining the amazing 8.53 carat jewel last week. The YouTube video clip appears below, courtesy of Hidabroot, part of the Hidabroot organization established by Rabbi Zamir Cohen to bring and spread the Torah's knowledge in Israel and the world. The video refers to the Star of David and Kabbalah.