100 Phenomena

Original story Compumedia 4.7.2019 World’s first totally synthetic nerve implanted in 3-year-old patient In Chicago yesterday, a medical team led by Prof. Adlay Maharina succesfully implanted in a 3-year-old child with a congenital hearing defect the world’s first completely synthetic nerve. The synthetic nerve replaced a damaged auditory nerve. This morning, the child woke up to hear for the first time his mother’s voice. According to the nurses and doctors present at the occasion, the look on the boy’s face was best described as one of stunned astonishment. ...

Original story SatWeb, 14.7.2018 A whale of a catch or an end to fishing? Experiments with sensory baits prompt angry response from Protect Our Oceans According to the Paris-based POO, the world’s seas cannot sustain the sort of extensive fishing that is represented with the new baits now being tested. In addition, the organization argues that a large part of the gargantuan fishing hauls being recorded will go to waste or be used wastefully, because the technology involved is not yet able to distinguish between sought-after fish and other species, or even between young fish and fish of the correct size for foodstuffs uses. ...

Original story Compumedia 7.7.2018 Cable-operated crewless ferry goes into service on Helsinki - Tallinn run The cable ferry C/S Kaapo (formerly the GTS Häkkinen) has been modified over the last two years to make the vessel suitable for cable navigation, and in the last three months it has undergone sea trials in the Baltic with crew on the bridge only in case of malfunctions or emergencies. In the course of the trials the vessel has not once misinterpreted or failed to understand cable signals, and no manual over-riding has been necessary at any stage. ...

Original story Internet Now 20.11.2018 EU Medical Commission warns cyberhotels dangerous for heart patients The European Union’s Medical Commission, meeting yesterday in Warsaw, has issued recommendations that persons with health risks should avoid using cyberhotels. A total of 52 people have died of heart attacks this year in cyberhotels in the EU area alone. The general view of the medical profession is that the deaths resulted from extreme tension and heightened emotional and physical functions. According to the Commission, anyone falling into a medical risk group should under no circumstances visit a cyberhotel alone. They should also avoid absolutely all exciting or potentially oppressive cyberenvironments. A particularly dangerous new trend has emerged in the so-called “cybersuits”, as these are known to elevate emotional states to extremes, often beyond normal human tolerance levels. ...

Original story Reuters, Helsinki & Stockholm, 11.6.2018 Forests set to become world’s gene bank as genic pine proves capable of storing and reproducing plant and animal hereditary factors If the Finns and the Swedes are to be believed, the forests are set to become the world’s gene bank. That is the view of the team of scientists led by Dr. Gunnulf Perkoi in the Swedish capital. The genic pine is sprayed with the desired plant or animal hereditary factors when the pine seedlings are around one month old. The young tree stores, isolates, and in a sense capsulates the imported factors into its own cell tissue. As the tree grows, the capsules reproduce, without influencing the development of the pine itself. ...

Original story NetWeb 9.8.2018 NADA tries to destroy age prevention therapy files in Quebec According to reports coming in from Montreal, a team of activists from the Natural Development Association NADA broke into the Quebec City premises of BioMechanics last night in an attempt to destroy files stored in hologram memories. The hit-team had posed as tourists on a day visit to the BioMechanics complex, and had managed to smuggle into the datacentre of the company’s age prevention laboratory a group of nanobugs that were pre-programmed to infiltrate the centre’s hologram units, search out any aluminium oxides they could find, and eat them. The synthetic ruby crystals in the hologram lasers are of the mineral corundum (Al2O3), in other words aluminium oxide. The result was that when the nanobugs found their prey, all the memory holograms crashed and the thousands of files contained in them were lost. ...

Original story Review in Compumedia Arts Digest 14.4.2018 The discreet charm of the invisible instrument Yesterday’s “invisitron” concert in Dallas left the audience stunned. Jack Michaelson is revolutionizing the way we experience music. It is not often that this columnist is lost for words, but the concert arranged by Passport PLC in a disused downtown industrial lot in Dallas yesterday came very close. For a start, the choice of venue was masterly: the city’s old Elm St. Industry Park, which has been allowed to return in the wake of the post-industrial revolution to a series of picturesque ruins set amidst grassy knolls and young trees. Interestingly enough, the concert was non-virtual, in that it was not distributed simultaneously through the datanets. The reason was that Passport have had one or two system teething troubles, and have not yet been able to produce hologram facsimiles for some of the concert elements. ...

Original story CrimeNews 12.11.2017 40 stolen birch-laminate gene chairs found in Glasgow market - thousands of patented Pentik chairs still unaccounted for Police in Glasgow have found some of the gene-chairs stolen last winter from a Finnish grower’s fields on sale in a waterfront market. Police were tipped off about the chairs by a designer attending a congress in the city, who recognized the patented Pentik model while out shopping for souvenirs. ...

Original story Compumedia Article Digest, 11.4.2017 First batch of aquanaut children celebrate second birthday Mankind’s first real step into a new element is now two years of age. Two years ago, the world witnessed the birth of the first human children designed to live and breathe in water. Now there are some forty such aquanaut babies still alive, despite early problems with feeding and communication. Since these babies are incapable of surviving outside of their aquatic environment, considerable difficulties emerged in the early stages over feeding and communication. These have, however, been overcome with a mixture of old-fashioned ingenuity and the latest technological advances. Feeding has been possible by the manufacture of a kind of artificial nipple, which gives the infant a solution corresponding to mother’s milk as necessary, and by energy packs containing the required proteins and antibodies. Communication, on the other hand, has been achieved using divers equipped with ultrasound speech synthesisers, altered to take account of the children’s nervous system and larynx muscles. ...

Original story Daily e-Mail 20.12.2017 Landfill biorobots go on rampage and eat São Paolo slum area - Brazilian army halts advance In one of the most horrific examples of “science runs riot”, a large part of a São Paolo slum district has been literally eaten away. The damage was caused by biorobots from a nearby landfill site, which have reproduced in uncontrolled fashion, apparently owing to high lead and artificial preservatives content in the waste they were designed to consume. They broke out of the huge fenced landfill compound in vast numbers, spreading to the makeshift shelters and lean-tos of the shanty town of Patriarca, and cut a broad swathe through several blocks, devouring the buildings just as if they were their regular diet of garbage. ...