Net als afgelopen jaren is hij er weer, dé Dr. Denker kerstpuzzel 2008 uit het Dagblad van het Noorden. De puzzel staat inmiddels ook op de website. De kerstpuzzel heeft dit jaar het thema lijf en leden. Het is ongetwijfeld weer een grote uitdaging om de rebussen op te lossen.

Ook discussiëren over de antwoorden kun je hier doen, maar voorzeggen (impliciet of expliciet) mag niet. Veel succes weer met de Dr Denker kerstpuzzel.

Niet helemaal zeker van een antwoord? Je kunt je antwoorden weer controleren met de antwoordcheck 2008.

It’s there again, the most inspiring scientific quiz of The Netherlands: The National Science Quiz. Do you know the answers to the twenty mind-blowing or maybe just easy questions? What are your theories that brings you to that certain answer? Exchange your ideas by responding to this post and when you think you got all those answers right consider participating by posting your answers at the VPRO (celebration for the spirit) and you might compete for a prize (though I doubt if internationa participants are allowed, its a national quiz after all). On Christmas Eve the answers will be given on television.
(the translation is quite poor so far, but I will try to improve it)

Question 1: What happens when you open a bottle of champagne in the international Space station (ISS)? 

Question 2: When a space shuttle returns to the earth, it will first return into a lower orbit around the earth. What will then happen to its forward velocity? 

Question 3: How will the shape of our planet transform in the future? 

Question 4: Why is it that dark skinned people are usually perceived less old in comparison to people with lighter skin tone? 

Question 5: A car drives in circles with a fixed angle of its steering wheel. Will there be a difference in the size of the circle it makes by driving either forward or reverse? 

Question 6: How do the oil balls in a pan with ebullient oil come float above? 

Question 7: You play a well-known melody on an instrument and take that. Vervolgens cut you 1/25ste of the beginning of the tones gone. Someone who listens to the prerecording: 

Question 8: Above 15,000 Hertz you can hear sounded hardly more. What hears hear you as tones at the same time two of respectively 15,000 and 20,000 Hertz late? 

Question 9: What demands on average the most of effort? 

Question 10: What happens there eventually with 95 per cent of the fotonen - lichtdeeltjes - which roams round in the universe? 

Question 11: How does it come indicate that less weight to the most of electronic balances on a gentle subsoil then on a hard subsoil? 

Question 12: What is maximum altitude with which you with a firm straw a glass can drain water in one time? 

Question 13: What will happens to the reception quality of radio signals, when there is not just a couple of thousands, but a couple of million people listening to the radio broadcast? 

Question 14: When is an egg the heaviest? 

Question 15: What to see you first as someone vanachter you do sudden langszij, beyond run? 

Question 16: Your hand is appropriate to a round banister exactly, so that can inch and middle finger touch each other. What happens there if you attract a glove and your hand lays for the leuning? 

Question 17: You throw a number of times with a coin, someone else throws with a coin one more time. How big is the chance that he throws head more often than you? 

Question 18: Which snow melts the fastest? 

Question 19: You fill a small beer bottle with such an amount of water that it will still float upside down in the water. Why is it that the bottle will sink to the bottom when you push it considerably down under water? 

Question 20: A heavy object is attached on top of a blown up innertube that floats in water. What will happen when you attach the object under the innertube?

Participation in the national science quiz (senior person and Junior) is possible until 12:00 at Monday 15th of December. Then invulformulieren by mail must or by means of Internet within its. You can send in you definite answers of national science quiz on the site of the NWO

A video I received through facebook once about a cat that was much more able to return than ours:

Since some months we have new cats. They are called Drouwe and Droppie. They are very playful and very keen on food. As most young cats I suppose. Especially Drouwe ‘mews’ a lot to get food as if he is starving. Unfortunately Droppie did not return home since yesterday night. So if you see her, use your most authoritive and strong voice and say to her: “Droppie, this is an official order: return home!”.

5th of November I graduated for my MSc Computational Intelligence and Robotics course together with Chaekith and Jonathan. On the photo you see me in my graduaton dress with Chaekith next to me. The ceremony was a nice experience.

Although my father is not in very good health he still decided to join us for some days to England so that we could be present there altogether. We did not stay in Leicester itself but at a farmer’s B&B. A good choice, nice rooms, and an excellent typical English breakfast of choice (see the photos that come soon) with sausages, eggs, fresh fruit, bacon and baked beans.

Besides the graduation ceremony we visited Stratford upon Avon, Cambridge and we had a glimpse of Ipswitch. The graduation itself was in De Montfort hall. A nice sight with all the people dressed up. And now I am graduated its time to get employed. I already had some job interviews and visit companies now and then.

Weet je wat pas echt handig is? Juist ja, een wasmachine op je WC. Dat is precies wat Sevin Coskun in Turkije heeft bedacht, wel ja eens een keer niet de japanners voor de verandering. Niet alleen bespaard het je ruimte in de badkamer, het is bovendien milieuvriendelijk doordat het waswater wordt herbruikte voor het doorspoelen van het toilet. Bovendien is het makkelijker inladen daar je niet hoeft te bukken om bij de klep te komen, wel moet je je was natuurlijk niet in de toiletpot laten vallen, alhoewel, daar zit natuurlijk ook waswater in.

Coskun dingt met dit concept mee voor de duurzaamheidsprijs ‘Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2008′. Of hij zal winnen, ik denk het niet. Schone was met een toch doorgaans smerig toilet, dat gaat volgens mij niet samen. Je kunt natuurlijk je wasmachine ook gewoon een verdieping hoger plaatsen en hetzelfde concept implementeren bij je in huis. Volgens mij gebeurt iets dergelijks ook bij sommige gebouwen.

Behalve washUP zijn er meer slimme gadgets die meedingen naar de prijs. Zo is er de stekkerdoos met een pedaal om je stekker te ontkoppelen, de zichzelf opladende mp3 speler, een intelligente douchekop (die je waterverbruik aangeeft) of de koelkast die met de restwarmte je eten ook kan opwarmen. Voor deze en overige gadgets kun je kijken op de core77 website.

After a long time I tried my luck on a coin shifting machine, something I last did when I was young at the carnival in my village. Luckily it took just small coins and I therefore spended just a small fee of a few pounds on it altogether. The weather was beautiful als you can see on the picture, where Chaekith is wading through the sea.

Also near the coast there was an enourmous crowd of mini cars. The modern ones but even more classical ones and many of them were adjusted by there owners. There was even a limousine version built by someone. These cars are quite cute, and who else drives one as Mini Mouse himself. A really nice trip, though quite a long journey from Leicester, however that gave me some time to study my exam in the coach.

The photos of the Brighton trip can be seen on the web site: Gallery for Brighton Pier.

1. First off, everything’s done from scratch, by hand. The plastics, circuitry, robotics, creatures, all of it. From clay to mould, to casting. No large or expensive machines, just blood and sweat. Check the How-to page if you’re curious.

2. Secondly I’m not against bioengineering, I’m simply hesitant towards where and how and by whom the technology will be used. That’s what this art sums up. Read on if you’re curious.
I don’t ever want to be confused for as a crazy activist, nor do I want to appear as endorsing this technology. Bioengineering could lead to medical breakthroughs that save lives, but will it? This is more a critique of corporate ethics than of technological ethics.

What are Genpets? I don’t know. You tell me.

Genpets seems to create a reaction wherever they go. While in the store window of Iodine Toronto, the shop owner began sleeping in the store at night for security reasons.
Many nights, people would bang at the windows furiously. Some in protest of the small Bio-genetically engineered creatures trapped in plastic, some wanting to wake them up or buy them. Hordes of teens wanting a bioengineered pet met confused, baffled, or even shocked looks from parents.
Some Parents even caught on to see where things were leading. That while something like this bothered them, it did not bother their children. For an upcoming generation, through our own marketing techniques, life has become a disposable commodity.
It’s easier to dismiss Genpets as a hoax or exaggeration when you’re not faced with a wall of them. The experience of a grainy photo is different than standing face to face with a breathing, sleeping creature.
The question surrounding bioengineering is not in it’s positive or negative ramifications, or where it can take us; it is whether or not we are ready to go there.

Artist Statement (V1.3)

“In 1985, the US Patents and trademarks Office (PTO) affirmed the legal precedent, ruling that genetically engineered plants, seeds and plant tissue could all be patented”1. Today, agricultural crops are being modified and organisms with built-in obsolescence are being sold as commodities. Life itself is quickly becoming a processed commodity in the privatization of nature. Biological engineering by large companies, outside of nature has become a terrifying reality for my generation to contend with.

Today, we are well within the process of desensitizing an upcoming generation towards accepting bioengineering as “natural”. I see this generation slowly and systematically being desensitized towards owning and manipulating life through toys such as Tamagotchis, and Furbies. Toys that mimic living creatures but carry no weight of responsibility with them. Individually these objects are harmless, however when analysing the trends in consumption on a larger scale, we can see that with every new toy the envelope is pushed a little further. Bioengineered pets could not have been acceptable yesterday, but they are today. Boundaries have been eroded.

I fear that this is leading us onto a dangerous path of objectifying living matter even more than we do so today and Genpets is my interpretation of how such a relationship would look. We have artificially separated ourselves from nature and refer to the organic as ‘product’.

Any new technology can bring with it both positive and negative ramifications. However we must ask questions every step of the way. I see how we treat the life already surrounding us that we have no moral claim over and I fear for any life brought into the world through the act of genetic manipulation; Life that would inherently have patented DNA. It would not be far fetched to assume that any such creation would have no rights of its own and be subject to whatever treatment deemed necessary upon it. Whether by testing, or packaging, this life would be a commodity of less value than any we have today. Genpets is meant to ask questions about a great deal of issues by providing a tangible example of a possible future.

*1 (Science, Seeds and Cyborgs, pg93)

[source: http://brandejs.deviantart.com/]