Posts tagged love songs

‘This American Life’ tackles patent trolls, lives to broadcast about it

Jul 26th

The financial crisis, DIY cryogenics, the love songs of Phil Collins — This American Life has taken on a lot in its 15 plus years on public radio. This week the Ira Glass-helmed show tackles a matter close to our hearts: the patent wars. The show has devoted the entirety of episode 441 to the seedy world of patent trolling. The TAL team focuses in on the practices of Intellectual Ventures, a name that should ring some bells and rattle some bank accounts around these parts. Check out the link to episode below — and why not subscribe to the podcast while you’re there? You can thank us later.

[Thanks, Brandon]

‘This American Life’ tackles patent trolls, lives to broadcast about it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tags: this american life, phil collins, seedy world, ira glass, love songs, public radio, patent wars

bank accounts, financial crisis, intellectual ventures, ira glass, love songs, patent wars, phil collins, public radio, seedy world, this american life

Magnetic fields shut down speech, permit love songs (video)

Apr 14th

Posted by michael in IT Gadgets

1 comment

You already know the strange powers of Stephin Merritt, but today we’re talking about real magnetic fields. Powerful electromagnets, it turns out, can do remarkable things to the brain — in this case, prevent a volunteer from reciting “Humpty Dumpty.” The carefully directed magnets temporarily disrupt the brain’s speech centers; the volunteer can still sing the rhyme using different areas of the brain, but simply can’t overcome a series of stammers when trying to merely recite it. Of course, it’s not all mad scientist applications: the UK team experimenting with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) thinks it can help us understand and treat migraines (as we’ve seen before with the Migraine Zapper), depression, and ADHD, among other ailments. But improving physical well-being doesn’t make for nearly as entertaining media — see the British inflict some involuntary quiet time in the video above.

Magnetic fields shut down speech, permit love songs (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Physorg | source New Scientist | Email this | Comments