Lifeboat Foundation

If you’ve never heard of the small island nation of Niue — which is associated with nearby New Zealand’s currency mints (this will be important momentarily) — you aren’t alone.

Related: How Much Money is in the Fountains at Disney World?

The country, whose official tourism website features the following description, offers a slice of untouched paradise to travelers from around the world:

It was just a leisurely walk in the woods — one they’ve done many times — but this time was different. This time, they spotted something that they say they’ll never forget.

It was Jan. 12 when two Ohio men found themselves staring at what they say resembled Bigfoot or Sasquatch in Salt Fork State Park.

Continue reading “2 Ohio men say they encountered Bigfoot-like creature at Salt Fork State Park” »

Congenital aphantasia is a recently characterized variation of experience defined by the inability to form voluntary visual imagery, in individuals who are otherwise high performing. Because of this specific deficit to visual imagery, individuals with aphantasia serve as an ideal group for probing the nature of representations in visual memory, particularly the interplay of object, spatial, and symbolic information. Here, we conducted a large-scale online study of aphantasia and revealed a dissociation in object and spatial content in their memory representations. Sixty-one individuals with aphantasia and matched controls with typical imagery studied real-world scene images, and were asked to draw them from memory, and then later copy them during a matched perceptual condition. Drawings were objectively quantified by 2795 online scorers for object and spatial details. Aphantasic participants recalled significantly fewer objects than controls, with less color in their drawings, and an increased reliance on verbal scaffolding. However, aphantasic participants showed high spatial accuracy equivalent to controls, and made significantly fewer memory errors. These differences between groups only manifested during recall, with no differences between groups during the matched perceptual condition. This object-specific memory impairment in individuals with aphantasia provides evidence for separate systems in memory that support object versus spatial information. The study also provides an important experimental validation for the existence of aphantasia as a variation in human imagery experience.

A possible wheelchair for the future! 😃

Self-balancing and stair-climbing wheelchair provides more independence.

More info: https://bit.ly/2LigV2x

This is my message to my fellow Americans and my friends around the world after January 62021.

Fifteen states have not criminalized the barbaric crime of female genital mutilation or FGM — and that is 15 too many. Connecticut is one of those 15 states.

Parler’s ability to be a safe haven for hate speech may not last long.

Israeli aerospace company Urban Aeronautics announced this week that it sold its first four vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to Hatzolah Air, a nonprofit emergency medical air transport provider based in New York. The organization already operates fixed-wing aircraft (meaning propeller-driven or powered by a jet engine, with wings that don’t move) as part of its emergency missions.

To that end, “flying ambulances” isn’t a new concept; they’ve existed for a long time in the form of helicopters and planes. In fact, the Association of Air Medical Services estimates that around 550000 people get medevaced in the US each year.

But Urban Aeronautics’ Cormorant CityHawk, as the aircraft is called, will bring some functional new features to the skies. Though it’s lightweight and has a compact footprint, its interior cabin is 20 to 30 percent larger than that of a helicopter, meaning it will be able to fit two EMTs, the patient plus a companion, and medical equipment (plus the pilot) without things getting too cramped.

This mechanism reduces friction and makes cycling more efficient.

CeramicSpeed has unveiled a prototype of a chainless bike. The company claims that its drivetrain creates 49% less friction comparing to traditional chain and derailleur drivetrains.