Globe Toking: Pot Around the World (Photos)

newsweek.com — A slideshow of how other countries in the world handle marijuana use. The list comprises countries that allow people to use the drug without facing jail time, mandatory drug treatment, or other penalties. 1 day 15 hr ago

Tony Avelar / The Christian Science Monitor-Getty Images

The most marijuana-friendly nations

By Ryan Tracy

Would Proposition 19, the proposal to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana use in California, have really generated the benefits that its proponents claimed? We may never know. But in theory, the answer is hazy for one main reason: Prop 19 would have gone further than any marijuana law on the books anywhere. The policy would have been revolutionary in the U.S., where marijuana is legal only for medical purposes—and that in just 13 states. But not even the world's pot meccas have legalized and taxed the drug from production to consumption, as Prop 19 would have allowed cities in California to do. Drug-policy experts, though, disagree on whether Prop 19 took the right approach. Do other parts of the world have a more sensible system? We've put together a slideshow of how some other countries in the world handle marijuana use.

Ed Oudenaarden / AFP-Getty Images

Netherlands

Not even Amsterdam, home of the Cannabis Cup, has laws like the ones Prop 19 proposes. Cannabis is illegal in the Netherlands, but the Dutch have decided to fight other types of crime and leave pot smokers, like this one smoking a pipe in Amsterdam, alone. Cops also don't bother "coffee shops" that sell marijuana as long as they follow certain rules, like not selling to minors and not selling "hard" drugs such as cocaine (the Dutch consider marijuana a "soft" drug). Prop 19 would make marijuana legal to use for people over the age of 21, though they could not smoke around minors, in public, or on school grounds. The Netherlands' system for regulating cannabis is similar to what Prop 19 proposes: individual municipalities decide how many marijuana retailers they will tolerate by issuing licenses. Licensed "coffee shops," in turn, have to pay taxes. Prop 19 would allow both those things in the state of California, but it would also permit and tax the commercial production of marijuana, sanctioning an industry that could create a huge supply of legal weed. Commercial marijuana production for recreational use is not legal anywhere on the planet.

Nacho Doce / Reuters-Landov

Portugal

Portugal decriminalized all drug use and possession in 2001, meaning that while using or possessing drugs is not legal, authorities don't punish users as they would a criminal offense, like robbery. When drug users are caught, they must appear before a three-person "dissuasion commission," which might mandate treatment if the person is a repeat offender. Drug dealers can still be prosecuted as criminals. A 2009 report by the libertarian Cato Institute found that drug use did not increase in Portugal after decriminalization, but deaths and disease related to drug use have decreased, perhaps because the government now offers better treatment programs for addicts. For some, decriminalization isn't enough, though: above, a pro-legalization March in Lisbon in 2008.

Andina Agency-Reuters-Landov

Peru

While Peru doesn't allow the sale of marijuana, it has gone further than other nations down the path to legalization. It's legal to possess about a third of an ounce (eight grams) of marijuana for personal use, with no fines, treatment programs, or other consequences. Debate about further legalization continues, though President Alan García has come out against the proposals. And the Peruvians are still making drug busts like the one cops are showing off above, in which they seized marijuana hidden in vuvuzelas at a school in Lima.

Enrique Marcarian / Reuters-Landov

Argentina

Argentina only recently entered the ranks of countries with relatively liberal cannabis policies. Last year a Supreme Court ruling declared that the country's constitution gave "each adult" the right to "make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state," paving the way for citizens like this man to grow cannabis plants on a small scale or use drugs. The court overturned convictions of people who had served jail terms for carrying marijuana. The ruling opened the door for the country's government to decriminalize other drugs as well.

Pablo La Rosa / Reuters-Landov

Uruguay

If Argentina is the newest member of the decriminalization club, Uruguay may be the oldest. The nation has never criminalized marijuana for personal use. Its laws have, since 1974, left it up to judges to determine what amount constitutes "personal use" on a case-by-case basis. Still some Uruguayans want more freedom. Above, a man smokes a joint a pro-legalization rally in Montevideo in 2007.

Luis Acosta / AFP-Getty Images

Mexico

In August 2009 Mexico decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana and other drugs, including heroin and cocaine. Individuals can possess less than a quarter of an ounce (five grams) of marijuana for personal use, though the law states that if a person is caught with small amounts of drugs on three occasions, he will face mandatory drug treatment. On the first and second occasions, treatment is optional. The decision to focus on treatment and leave drug users unprosecuted came in the midst of a bloody war between drug cartels, but young Mexicans are still organizing pro-legalization rallies, like the one above in September 2010.

www.encod.org

Belgium

Though Belgium has decriminalized marijuana, meaning that possession of up to five grams, or less than a quarter of an ounce, will not lead to a criminal penalty, possession will still net you a fine. The fine of €75 (about $104) is relatively low, however—Luxembourg mandates a fine of €250 for a possessing a small amount of marijuana, and in Spain the fine is €300. Still, pro-legalization rallies, like this one in Antwerp, still attract a crowd. Belgium has made it illegal to smoke in the presence of minors or in public—as California would should Prop 19 pass—but will tolerate personal consumption in private. Belgium treats the cultivation of any more than one plant as a criminal offense.

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Trippy Bowls Inspired By Spiders On Drugs

Trippy Bowls Inspired By Spiders On Drugs

by Stephen Messenger

from http://www.treehugger.com/

Photos via Guillaume Lehoux

Spiders are one of nature's most capable engineers, crafting their delicate webs with uncanny precision, making it seem so effortless -- but when they get high on drugs, boy is it a different story. Once, in order to test the effects of psychoactive substances on the behavior of living things, NASA doped-up several spiders and watched them build. What resulted were some undeniably trippy web patterns. Now, one designer has replicated those drug-inspired creations into some unique-looking bowls, sure to leave you a bit dazed and confused.

During the testing, several spiders were given doses from one of four different substances: marijuana, benzedrine, caffeine or chloral hydrate. Interestingly, the web patterns the intoxicated spiders then produced seemed to reflect their altered state, deviating significantly from their standard web design.

Despite the rather cruel nature of those NASA experiments, French designer Guillaume Lehoux found the outcome to be fascinating and began working on the SOD_project, which of course stands for Spiders On Drugs.

The designer explains his motivation behind the project:

This experience seemed interesting to me for the visual and graphic aspects of its results. The webs produce by spiders offer something rare: a tangible and comparable visualization of the way some drugs affect the behavior of a living being.

My designer reflection focused on one side on how to reinvest the patterns of the webs of the experiment in one or more objects in volume and on the other side, the reflection was on the search for a typology of objects relevant to the environment of the experiment, namely the science/medicine, the drugs and the spiders.

The normal web (sober spider) is a dense and regular pattern. The design of the web, made of concentric circles and diagonals, seems to be governed by a general idea.

Marijuana affects concentration of the spider. Parts of the web, especially toward the outside, so late in the making of the web, are incomplete or missing.

Caffeine greatly disturbs the spider which is no longer capable of doing anything other than a fully heterogeneous and disorderly web.

Benzedrine, stimulating substance, causes great excitement among the spider. It works hard to weave his web but his haste causes significant omissions in the construction.

Chloral hydrate, sedative substance, slows down the actions of the spider. It fells asleep quickly without completing the making of the web. That explains the very brief appearance of this one.

Following the spirit of the spiders' original creations, Lehoux designed his webs to 'trap' or hold things as well, finding use as fruit bowls and loose change trays. Still, I suspect they'll serve better as a conversation piece -- or a place to store your old Pink Floyd cassettes.

NOTE: Just to clarify, this post was written to showcase one artist's provocative work, the focuses of which centers on the results from a controversial series of experiments performed by NASA some years ago. It should be said that I do not condone the animal-testing that inspired these designs, nor does, necessarily, the artist. I believe that the lives of all creatures, even common spiders, should be treated with respect and dignity.

Holographic communication flickers into life in Arizona

Long anticipated by science fiction, real-time holographic communication and 'telepresence' are finally within our grasp

• By: Alok Jha
• From: guardian.co.uk,



Princess Leia's holographic SOS. Researchers report in Nature today the transmission of moving 3D holographic images in almost real time. Photograph: PR

In Star Wars, Princess Leia records a 3D hologram of herself appealing for help from the Rebel Alliance in her epic battle against the Empire. The Emperor himself projects holographic messages to his henchman, Darth Vader. And, very soon, you too will be able to transmit messages in a similar way, whether or not you are involved in a galactic battle between good and evil.

Thanks to scientists at the University of Arizona, real-world holograms have finally started to catch up with their fictional cousins. In a paper published today in Nature, they report the transmission of moving 3D images from one place to another in almost real time. This means it may eventually be possible to communicate with moving 3D images of friends or colleagues who are on the other side of the world. Surgeons will be able to use the technology to step into virtual operating theatres in other cities, and films will become ever more immersive.

"Holographic telepresence means we can record a 3D image in one location and show it in another location, in real-time, anywhere in the world," said Nasser Peyghambarian, who led the team behind the new technology.

Until now, scientists have been able to create holograms that display static 3D images, but creating video has not been easy. Two years ago, Peyghambarian's team demonstrated a device that was able to refresh a holographic image once every few minutes – it took around three minutes to produce a single-colour image, followed by a minute to erase that image before a new one could be written into its place.

In his latest project, Peyghambarian's team reduced that image refresh time to two seconds. They also showed it was possible to use full colour and demonstrated parallax, whereby people looking at the image from different angles will see different views of the image, just as if they were looking at the original object.

One of the first applications is likely to be in telepresence meeting systems. The most advanced modern telepresence systems use large, high-definition video screens to display standard 2D images. Holographic technology could be incorporated to make the people on the screen 3D.

"Let's say I want to give a presentation in New York," said Peyghambarian. "All I need is an array of cameras here in my Tucson office and a fast internet connection. At the other end, in New York, there would be the 3D display using our laser system. Everything is fully automated and controlled by computer. As the image signals are transmitted, the lasers inscribe them into the screen and render them into a three-dimensional projection of me speaking."

The holographic images are captured using feeds from an array of standard video cameras, each recording the subject from a different perspective every second. More cameras mean more perspectives can be recorded, so the resulting hologram can be more detailed. The visual information is encoded into short laser pulses that write individual holographic pixels, known as hogels, on to a screen.

"If you go to a 3D film like Avatar, you'll see only two perspectives, one for one eye and one for the other eye. In our case, we've demonstrated 16 perspectives, but the technology has the potential to show hundreds of perspectives. It's very close to what humans can see in their surroundings," said Peyghambarian. "In surgery, for example, the cameras will be around where the surgery is done, so that different doctors from different parts of the world can participate and they can see things just as if they were there."

Whereas the image of Princess Leia in Star Wars is projected in three-dimensional space, the new technology uses a 2D screen to create the illusion of 3D. At the heart of Peyghambarian's system is his team's invention of a new type of plastic known as a photorefractive polymer. The material, which is used to make the screen, allows the researchers to record and erase images quickly.

The protoype described in Nature used a 10-inch screen, but the team have already improved on this with a 17-inch version.

"In terms of size, if you look at that famous hologram of Princess Leia, we are about that size," said Peyghambarian. "It is actually very close to reality. It is no longer science fiction, it is something you can do today."

Bringing the 3D holographic technology to market will involve reducing the size of the individual hogels to get a sharper image, and increasing the refresh rate of the image to around 30 times per second, so that it has the same smoothness as television. Even then, said Peyghambarian, the amount of data needed for a telepresence system could easily be carried by standard 2 or 3 gigabit per second internet cable of the kind already in use today.

Guy Tricks His Girl Into Eating Ghost Chili Pizza

Guy Tricks His Girl Into Eating Ghost Chili Pizza - Watch more Funny Videos

Ghostbusters 3 Set To Start Filming In May 2011?

By Josh Tyler

From http://www.cinemablend.com/


There’s been almost no real movement on the eagerly anticipated, long-gestating Ghostbusters 3 for months. Because of that there’s been no reason to believe the movie, despite the best intentions of people like Ivan Reitman

and Dan Akyroyd, will ever happen at all let alone any time soon. Except now, out of nowhere, not only does the oft reliable Production Weekly believe it’s happening, they believe Sony has actually set a start date for filming.

They say they’ve been hearing that Sony Pictures

plans to put an Ivan Reitman directed Ghostbusters 3 into production in May of 2011. If true, that could mean you’ll see a Ghostbusters 3 in theaters during the summer of 2012.

Yet even Production Weekly seems a little uncertain on this rumor and if you’ve been following the somewhat tortured production process of Ghostbusters 3 at all, you know there are a lot of road blocks they’ll need to clear out of the way before they can begin filming in earnest. The biggest road block is Bill Murray who, up till now, has shown no sign of actually being interested in doing this movie. He’s demanded they kill him off, trashed the script, loudly proclaimed that he doesn’t think it’ll ever happen, and generally sounded like he simply doesn’t want it to. And without Venkman, there is no Ghostbusters sequel.

A few weeks ago, though, he did show up at the Scream Awards in full Ghostbusters regalia. Was that a sign that he’s had a change of heart and it’s full speed ahead on Ghostbusters 3? We’ll have more on this as it develops.

58-inch iPhone Table is multitouch on steroids

by Habibies
From: http://www.zurmat.com/

Steve Jobs says that multitouch must be horizontal, but for some reason, I don not think this is quite what he had in mind: the Table Connect for iPhone is a close-to-complete project that marries a 58-inch multitouch surface with your jailbroken iPhone 4 through a 30-inch Dock Connector… not only charging your iPhone but turning your desk into your iPhone.

I’d want one to perch my iMac, but seeing as how I have never once seen the surface of my desk underneath its perpetual detritus of tobacco ash, beer bottles and discarded Starbucks cups, it might be money ill spent.

Hope you see the product in the market soon.

Link

90s Alternative Rock: the Best B-Sides and Rarities

The 90s gave us some of the purest rock music ever, and it’s a testament to the quality of those bands that they were able to record dozens of solid albums and still have plenty of great rare material lying around. What follows is a list of some of the best B-sides, rarities, obscure tracks, and special releases from eight definitive 90s rock bands. Enjoy the flashback.

8. “Get Born Again” by Alice in Chains

Recorded late in the band’s career and originally released on the boxed set Music Bank, “Get Born Again” highlights Layne Staley’s incomparably creepy vocal style. While it lacks some of the punch of songs like “Man in the Box,” it makes up for it with atmosphere.

7. “Cold Bitch” by Soundgarden

Available on the single for “Spoonman,” “Cold Bitch” sounds like Black Sabbath’s self-titled track via the mind of an acid-tripping madman. Kim Thayil’s doom and gloom guitar tones complement Chris Cornell’s unparalleled vocal range. That “rare, unreleased track” that they recently slapped on their greatest hits album was a fluke; they have a lot of lesser-known material that’s just as good as the classics.

6. “So What!” by Jane’s Addiction

Recorded specifically for the compilation release Kettle Whistle, “So What!” is an obscure Jane’s Addiction tune that is notable for featuring the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Flea on bass duties. His seductive rhythms provide the groove, while Dave Navarro’s psychedelic guitar tones and Eastern melodies ensure that Perry’s lyrics—“Life is for pleasure”—sound very, very appropriate.

5. “Fatal” by Pearl Jam

Of all the 90s alternative rock bands, Pearl Jam has had some of the greatest success when it comes to staying relevant, and when you write enough material to release a B-sides album, Lost Dogs, that consists of two discs, it’s pretty easy to see why. “Fatal,” an outtake from the Binaural era, sounds simultaneously defiant and resigned, gentle and brutal. In strictly Pearl Jam terms, it is the middle ground between “Jeremy” and “Daughter,” featuring dark lyrics, acoustic guitars, heavy rhythms, and some of the most haunting vocal work Eddie Vedder has ever delivered.

4. “Search and Destroy” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Found on the “Give it Away” single, this cover of “Search and Destroy,” originally written and performed by Iggy and the Stooges, highlights the punk rock intensity that characterized the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s early years while maintaining their unique funk sound. The rough sound of the recording makes perfect sense for the song choice.

3. “The Ghost of Tom Joad” by Rage Against the Machine

Bruce Springsteen was inspired by The Grapes of Wrath to pen this tune on economic inequality, and Rage Against the Machine was inspired by his socially conscious lyrics to cover it in their distinct rap-rock style. They did such a good job with it that, although originally released as a rare single, it ended up charting anyway. Zack de la Rocha’s voice is as angry as ever, and Tom Morello runs his guitar through so many effects pedals that you wonder how he made sense of what he was doing. Either way, it works, and the song was popular enough that another recording of it was made available on the band’s post-breakup cover album, Renegades.

2. “Molly’s Lips” by Nirvana

Found on the Incesticide collection, “Molly’s Lips” is a cover of a song originally performed by The Vaselines. While the original recording features shimmering guitars, it’s a slow, forgettable tune that sounds a little too hollow to love. The aggressive approach that Cobain and company took with the song transforms it into a classic and represents what made Nirvana so successful: they played catchy tunes while sacrificing none of the ferocity of their punk rock roots. Not only was Cobain a superb songwriter, but he could pick out an already decent song—“The Man Who Sold the World” also comes to mind—and make it much, much better.

1. “Starla” by Smashing Pumpkins

Originally released on the “I Am One” single and made widely available on Pisces Iscariot, a collection of B-sides, demos and covers that kept fans pacified during the recording of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, “Starla” is a monster of a song, clocking in at just about eleven minutes in length.

Prior to branching out with arrangements, electronic beats, and synthesizers, frontman Billy Corgan was all about creating the trippiest guitar sounds he could. The result is a track that begins with a gentle, clean riff and culminates in a five minute long solo featuring layers upon layers of fuzzed out electric guitars. It’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” for the slacker generation.

Photos: The Making of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' Video | Rolling Stone Music | Photos

Photos: The Making of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' Video | Rolling Stone Music | Photos

It’s been 17 years since Douglas Kirkland had exclusive access as the sole photojournalist at Michael Jackson’s landmark “Thriller” video. It wasn’t until Jackson’s death in June, 2009 that the photographer decided to finally share the wealth of material he originally shot for Life magazine in book form, due out this month as Michael Jackson: The Making of Thriller/4 Days/1983. We asked Kirkland about a few of his favorite shots, as well as what they revealed about the singer.

Click here for the full GALLERY: Photos: The Making of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' Video | Rolling Stone Music | Photos

Marijuana Policy Project: A clean sweep in Massachusetts!

November 3, 2010

A clean sweep in Massachusetts! Yesterday, 18 legislative districts were given the opportunity to let their legislators know that marijuana policy in Massachusetts needs reforming. On ballots across Massachusetts, voters were asked if their state officials should support medical marijuana or taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol. In all 18 districts, the voters sent a message to Boston. Reform must happen. Nine districts had public policy questions on the ballot asking if medical marijuana should be available to seriously ill residents with a doctor’s recommendation. All nine districts agreed it should be. Nine districts asked if marijuana should be taxed and regulated, like alcohol, as opposed to the current outright prohibition, which creates violence and wastes millions in resources. They all said yes. Although these questions are non-binding, they certainly send a strong message to legislators that reform must happen. Many thanks go out to the various organizations who worked so tirelessly on these PPQs, including the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts and MassCann. These organizations have helped amplify your voice, now it’s time to make sure it’s heard in Boston! Thank you kindly for all your support and help. Sincerely, Robert J. Capecchi Legislative Analyst Marijuana Policy Project

Vending Machine Grows 20,000 Heads of Lettuce a Year Without Sunlight

by Brian Merchant
from: http://www.treehugger.com/

Photos: Dentu

This is how we shall grow produce in the post-apocalyptic future

Finally -- a device that will guarantee we can still grow vegetables in the dark, after a nuclear holocaust has blocked out the sun or rampaging zombies have taken over our farmland. This Japanese lettuce-growing vending machine has been making the blog-rounds over the last few months, both because it doesn't require sunlight (it uses fluorescent bulbs) and because of the surprising yield it can churn out: 60 heads a day, or over 20,000 a year.

DVice explains:

The machine, called the Chef's Farm, was developed by Dentsu and can produce 60 heads of lettuce per day (or 20,000 heads per year) grown under 40 watt fluorescent lighting housed in a chrome housing that can be stored conveniently in any restaurant.

It can evidently grow other kinds of veggies as well.

The portable fluorescent garden goes is on sale for $90,000, with the target market ostensibly being restaurants that want locally manufactured, sun-free vegetables on site.

Re-Nest has more:

Chef's Farm comes with five nutri-culture beds, which are each installed on long and thin metal frames. The lettuce seeds are planted in sponges in frames that have to be moved manually ... The lighting equipment, culture solution, and temperature can be controlled for each bed, and five different vegetables can be cultivated at the same time.

Obviously, shining twelve 40 watt bulbs on a shelf of seeds isn't the most efficient way to grow veggies, and there's no word on just how much water these 'nutri-culture' beds consume to pump out the lettuce at such a rapid clip -- and there's no word on the quality or nutritional value of the lettuce either. I suppose it would cut down on delivery emissions, but not much more than using locally-sourced produce.



But at least Soylent Green won't be the only menu item in the dystopic urban wastelands of the future.

Hero Dad Catches Toddler After Tumble From Paris Apartment Building Window

by Amy Hatch

from: http://www.parentdish.com/

Filed under: In The News, Weird But True

Nice catch, Dad. Credit: Getty Images

Zut alors!

It was the catch of a lifetime for a French good Samaritan, who saved a Parisian toddler from certain death this week.

An 18-month-old baby tumbled out of an apartment building in Paris Nov. 1, only to be saved by the open arms of a father who was passing by on the street below. The little girl, who fell seven stories, bounced off a cafe awning and was caught by the unnamed man, the New York Post reports.

The rescuer, who also happened to be a doctor, was alerted to the situation by his own young son. The boy got a glimpse of the child, who was allegedly playing with her sisters, just before she fell out of the window. French authorities are praising the man's quick reflexes and credit him with saving the baby's life.

The petite enfant, who also was not named, was taken to the hospital. Miraculously, she suffered nary a scratch during her frightening fall. According to the Post, the children were unsupervised at the time of the incident and les gendarmes are questioning the child's parents as to why the kids were left in the apartment alone.

World's Smallest Solar-Powered Movie House Seats 8

by Jerry James Stone
from: http://www.treehugger.com/

Photo via Facebook/The Sol Cinema

The Sol Cinema is a tiny, solar-powered movie house that seats eight adults or twelve children. While it might not be the best screen for watching Avatar, I'm sure it will sell out for An Inconvenient Truth 2: When Zombies Attack!


Photo via Facebook/The Sol Cinema

The cinema is a converted two berth caravan from the 1960's commissioned by the media arts charity Undercurrents. It runs on four large lithium ion batteries charged by two 120W solar panels. Undercurrents encourages people to make environmental films.



Photo via Facebook/The Sol Cinema
Photo via Facebook/The Sol Cinema
Photo via Facebook/The Sol Cinema
Photo via Facebook/The Sol Cinema

First 3D-Printed Car Hits The Road

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto
from: http://www.treehugger.com/

Credit: Stratasys

The Urbee has been an Automotive X Prize candidate and will be on The Discovery Channel's Canadian flagship Daily Planet. The car, designed by Kor Ecologic of Winnipeg, Canada, is an electric / liquid-fuel hybrid that will get the equivalent of over 200 mpg on the highway and 100 MPG in the city.

But it is also the first car ever to have its entire body printed out on a giant 3D printer.

Credit: Stratasys

According to a press release from Stratasys:

Urbee is the first prototype car ever to have its entire body 3D printed with an additive process. All exterior components - including the glass panel prototypes - were created using Dimension 3D Printers and Fortus 3D Production Systems at Stratasys' digital manufacturing service - RedEye on Demand.

The designers at Kor point out the benefits of Fused Deposition Modelling:

"Our goal in designing it was to be as 'green' as possible throughout the design and manufacturing processes. FDM technology from Stratasys has been central to meeting that objective. FDM lets us eliminate tooling, machining, and handwork, and it brings incredible efficiency when a design change is needed. If you can get to a pilot run without any tooling, you have advantages."

The implications for building prototypes are obvious; you go straight from computer to finished part in a lot less time. But imagine a few years down the road, when everyone might order up the car body of their choice from a catalogue and just bolt it on a standard chassis. Ding the side? Just print up a replacement.

Eternal sunshine? Scientists create technique to delete traumatic memories

By Daily Mail Reporter

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Researchers have found a way of permanently deleting painful memories, which they say could lead to drugs for post-traumatic stress disorder.

A team at John Hopkins University in the U.S removed a protein from the region of the brain responsible for recalling fear in tests on mice.

The mice were then unable to recall fear associated with a loud sound.

Science-fiction could soon be reality after researchers found a way to delete painful memories. The concept was explored in the film Eternal Sunshine Of A Spotless Mind where Jim Carrey (pictured) and Kate Winslet decide to erase each other from their memories after a difficult break-up

The method is similar to that imagined in the film Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, where Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet decide to erase each other from their memories after a difficult break-up.

The scientists, whose report appears in Science Express, said it had important implications for patients whose lives were blighted by fear.

Lead researcher, Dr Richard L Huganir, said: 'When a traumatic event occurs, it creates a fearful memory that can last a lifetime and have a debilitating effect on a person’s life.

'Our finding describing these molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in that process raises the possibility of manipulating those mechanisms with drugs to enhance behavioural therapy for such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder.'

Behavioural therapy has been shown to ease the depth of the emotional response to traumatic memories, but not in completely removing the memory itself, making relapse common.

Dr Huganir and post-doctoral fellow Roger Clem focused on the nerve circuits in the amygdala, the part of the brain known to underly so-called fear conditioning in people and animals.

Using sound to cue fear in mice, they observed that certain cells in the amygdala conducted more current after the mouse was exposed to a loud, sudden tone.

They found temporary increases in the amount of particular proteins - the calcium-permeable AMPARs - within a few hours of fear conditioning that peaked at 24 hours and disappeared 48 hours later.

These particular proteins are uniquely unstable and can be removed from nerve cells.

Dr Huganir said: 'The idea was to remove these proteins and weaken the connections in the brain created by the trauma, thereby erasing the memory itself.'

In further experiments, they found that removal of these proteins depended on the chemical modification of the GluA1 protein.

Mice lacking this chemical modification of GluA1 recovered fear memories induced by loud tones, whereas litter mates did not recover the same fear memories.

Dr Huganir suggests that drugs designed to control and enhance the removal of calcium-permeable AMPARs may be used to improve memory erasure.

Dr Huganir said: 'This may sound like science fiction, the ability to selectively erase memories.

'But this may one day be applicable for the treatment of debilitating fearful memories in people, such as post-traumatic stress syndrome associated with war, rape or other traumatic events.'

This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

INFOGRAPHIC: Your Guide to Prop 19

By Brandon Ferguson
From http://blogs.ocweekly.com/

For all you unmotivated pot-heads waiting til the last minute to get the facts on Proposition 19, this just in: The election is tomorrow. Take a look at this trippy infographic designed by Jay Brockman. It'll fill you in on everything you need to know about the issues surrounding marijuana legalization.


Click on the image to enlarge!

Jay Brockman/OC Weekly

Product Review: Four Loko Energy Drink/Alcoholic Beverage

From: Hollytaco.com

There’s this drink called Four Loko that has been making some waves recently, mostly due to its high caffeine and alcohol content, and the Bro-attracting pheromones it emits that hypnotizes people with backwards hats that can only say the word chug to drink multiple cans of it. The downside of this (or upside, depending on how much you hate “Bro” culture) is that the caffeine in Four Loko shuts off the body’s natural shut-off moment that occurs when drinking lots of alcohol. You know that moment -- it’s when you’ve had one too many and you start to get tired and lose all willingness to take another drink. Four Loko stops that stopping mechanism from stopping you from drinking, which, after a few more Four Lokos, stops your consciousness, and possibly your life. Case in point: nine college students in Washington State were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, some having a blood alcohol level of 0.35, when 0.30 percent is considered potentially lethal.

Depending on the state you’re buying it in, the alcohol content of a Four Loko can range from 6% ABV to 12.5% ABV. So if the average alcohol content of an average bottle of beer is 4 to 5%, then that means one Four Loko is around 6 beers in one can (if you’re drinking a 12.5% can). Add in the caffeine that apparently strips you of your humanity, leaving you unable to feel things, and one can easily consume enough alcohol to require a stomach pump and enough caffeine to turn your heart in to a blood-spraying fire hose. And on top of all that, each can is as tall as one of those large 99-cent cans of Arizona iced tea. In other words, this shit will get you f*cked up, and fast, and there’s a lot of it.

Being the idiots that we are, we decided to head on over to our local seedy gas station to pick up a couple of cans to see what all the fuss was about. We now hate ourselves and no longer trust ourselves to make wise purchasing decisions.

Can Aesthetics

Every can of Four Loko looks like it wants to star in a gay porn parody of a Rambo film. They’re all dawned in this Technicolor camouflage that no life-loving solider would ever wear in a battlefield, unless they were battling some tall, blue primitives on Pandora.

The can itself is rather large and phallic. If one were to gather a number of Bros together in a room, gave them a case of Four Loko’s, and told them to go to town, it would only be about 10 minutes before one of them started deep-throating a can for laughs. The laughs would then be followed by claims of homosexuality, which will cause a fight and a death or two. Contrast this with Arizona iced tea cans, which will not bring about cries of homosexuality because simply holding a large, dick-like can of pomegranate lemongrass fusion with a picture of a geisha on the front is a big gay subliminal tip off to everyone within a square mile.

Taste

It’s like Robitussin mixed with cheap vodka that’s been filtered through a cheese cloth made of woven hatred. Christ, it’s awful. Every time someone took a swig of the stuff, whether it was a the tiniest of sips or the mightiest of gulps, the sound of the slurping liquid was immediately followed by an eye-squeezing cringe that would also include some tongue waggling and some kind of unspellable word – one that was unique to each drinker -- that represented total disgust. In fact, you didn’t even have to be looking at someone to know they took a drink. You could have your back turned to them and the sound of disgust the person would make made you instantly aware they regret ever buying this can of suck.

Every 10 minutes or so one of my drinking buddies would turn to everyone and ask how everyone was feeling. When one of them answered, “full of energy,” I was shocked, because drinking this shit made me depressed, and not in the way that alcohol makes you depressed because it’s a depressant. No; I just felt so universally stupid for having bought something so atrocious just to get a little drunk. It felt so sad and desperate. Only hobos and transient pedophiles drink malt liquor, not adults with jobs and responsibilities. And, on top of that, it’s flavored, or, at least, they attempted to add flavor. I really don’t want to know what Four Loko tastes like when they don’t add in those wild approximations of fruity flavors -- probably battery acid and despair. My can was fruit punch flavored, but after having sampled some of the watermelon flavor I can safely surmise that the words on the can mean nothing: every flavor tastes like fermented assholes and poison, just one can of fermented assholes and poison houses a red liquid and another houses a green liquid.

Needless to say, it’s pretty tough to drink more than a quarter of the can without wanting to throw it away, but if there is one saving grace for Four Loko it’s…

The Effects

…a quarter of a can will get you drunk, or at least very tipsy. Within sips, everyone I was drinking with was well on the way to vomiting red in to a toilet. If the stated purpose of Four Loko is to get you super-drunk super- fast, then this product is smashing success…you just have to muscle through sip after sip of questioning whether or not you want to continue to subject yourself to a the kind of torture that I’m pretty sure the Geneva conventions outlawed years ago.

So it gets you drunk, but it’s also got a hell of a lot of caffeine and guarana and taurine and all of those energy drink buzz words that only stressed-out hardcore PC gamers can spell the names of without having to type them in to Google because Microsoft Word doesn’t recognize them. There is so much of this stuff that my heart actually began to palpitate, which is not a good thing, as one of my drinking buddies that also happens to be a paramedic informed me. My heart rate was well above normal only after having drank half the can – the hearts of those kids in Washington State had to have been beating so fast they could have powered a Tesla coil. I’m convinced that if this Four Loko stuff doesn’t get banned by the government for being stupidity in a can, the power of a human heart being fueled by Four Loko could be the wondrous alternative energy source humanity has been waiting for.

The Verdict

If you want to get drunk there are better alternatives, for instance, you can always make some toilet wine. I’m sure that would be a better drinking experience, and you’ll also feel productive instead of thinking about hiring a level-headed non-idiot to walk around with you that will prevent you from buying products that make you hate them, which seems counter to the purpose of every product that has been and will be.

Awesome timelapse video: Rapture

From: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/

Tom Lowe is an amazing photographer who makes devastating, astonishing timelapse videos of the night sky. Once again, he does not disappoint. Here’s your must-see video of the day: Rapture.

TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

Make sure it’s set to HD, make it full screen, and turn your speakers up. I suggest letting the video buffer get well ahead, too, so it doesn’t skip.

Rapture is a paean to the American Southwest, one of my favorite regions on the planet. But the video’s loaded with gorgeous, sensuous astronomical skyscapes as well. Tom takes time exposures long enough to register faint night sky objects, but at the same time uses slow tracking to move the camera. The superposition of the ground and sky motion is simply mesmerizing. The music by Nigel "John" Stanford is incredibly compelling, too.

How many deep-sky objects can you identify in the video? The Andromeda Galaxy makes a brief appearance, and when the hub of the Milky Way slides across the sky, it’s awesome to behold.

Tom is the real thing. You should also check out his "Death Is the Road to Awe", a similar timelapse video.

Simply incredible. There is such beauty out there, and such gifted artists who can capture it and show it to us.

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My thanks to Tom for giving me the heads-up on this. Follow him on Twitter for more information about his amazing work.