Top 10 Things You Can’t Know

No-one can truly be a know-it-all, because quite frankly, we are not allowed to know everything. And the government makes sure of it; this is done via a series of secrecy and privacy laws which tend to differ from country to country, but largely remain the same. Of course it is our right as citizens to know as much as we can, to keep those government blinds slanted open by all means necessary (such as via the Freedom of Information Act – a.k.a. The best friend of any journalist stuck on the local government beat). While that may be, there are certain bits of info that with be unarguably sealed off and “For Your Eyes Only.” Here are ten of those best kept secrets.

Trade Secrets

Secret: Trade Secrets

This is a very necessary legal provision. After all, healthy competition is fundamental to a capitalistic society and making sure companies keep locked up what exactly gives them a leg up ensures that the market isn’t flooded with cheap imitators. In that way, monopolies are also guaranteed. For instance, if anyone ever managed to ascertain Coca Cola’s secret formula, Coca Cola would no longer be the #1 cola in the world, as you could just make it at at home in your bathtub for much less (although with possibly more floating hairs and bits of soap scum). Everything Coke has worked for from the ground up to accomplish in the last hundred plus years would have been artfully negated. These laws preserve integrity as much as they might be less in favor of the common man.

Oil

Secret: Locations of Oil Deposits

If this wasn’t a purposeful secret, there’d be Beverly Hillbillies; the locations of oil deposits maintain such a tight lid because otherwise anybody could purchase the land under which the walls appear and become instantly wealthy. And with that, there’d be an incredible lack of fairness if anyone who had privileged access to that kind of information (and there has always been someone) were able to go out and invest some of that golden property. The government does, at times, go out of its way to set a level playing field, even when it may seem to favor corporations over people.

Intelligence

Secret: Any “Intelligence” the Government Choose to Withhold

There is a whole process through which government obtains information about the on-goings of various countries and people and packages them into manila folders. The government can release information, although it rarely goes out of its way to (why the Freedom of Information Act and Government in the Sunshine Act exist, the essential common purposes being transparent). It may deliberately leak information or demote or remove the “classified” status of a piece of information. But some information is just clutched onto with a death grip, sometimes to save face (lest we forget the the backlashes following Wikileaks and the Pentagon Papers).

Insider Information

Secret: Insider Information

Another certainty of fairness is the illegality of acquiring financial reports that have yet to be released to the public (and using them advantageously). This ensures no individual cheats the system and has his illicit payday. Remember how humble homemaker and uber-savvy businesswomen Martha Stewart attempted to profit beyond her already gross profits by using this illegal maneuver–a tactic that landed her straight in prison (where she probably had the most ornately arranged cell in the facility). Word to the wise: don’t be like Martha.

Banking

Secret: Bank Account Information

This legal bank provision actually works against the government; the Swiss Banking Act, created in 1934, actually protects offshore bank accounts, which make it so clients can evade taxes and essentially lie about their level of wealth. This forbids authority figures from accessing information about clients, except when particular individuals are being indicted and their account information may serve the case in some essential way. But you can imagine kinder of abuse and corruption than can ensue with this kind of provision (and if you haven’t experienced it in recent years, you’ve surely witnessed it). This is one of those examples where the law seems to serve banks and big corporations more than it does your average Joe. There are a few anti-corruption measures that have been implemented since, such as the U.S Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 and the (all-around-Orwellian) Patriot Act, which both work against bank secrecy, and in particular to cut back on the illegal stuff (money laundering, etc.).

Medical Secrets

Secret: Medical Records or Patient Histories

Another provision of U.S. Privacy laws, employees – who benefit from the various ways businesses are protected and who are treated as bits of information within a company – are protected from any undue poking around. In addition to bank account information, kept private are individuals medical records. Also in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath, which all doctors and medical specialists must uphold by law–unless it becomes an issue of patient safety or the safety of others–a strict confidentiality agreement with their patients. This, amongst else, prevents pure and utter humiliation.

Nuclear Secrets

Secret: Nuclear Weapon Design Plans

This is evidence that the U. S. -Soviet Arms race never quite concludes, not in spirit anyway. Maintaining a constant “Top Secret” or “Secret” status, the two highest levels of “Classified” information, of information that if exposed could cause some sort of harm, “Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information” (as it’s called) is something that will never be revealed to anyone but officials with the utmost kind of security clearance. As our Department of Defense is a very tight-lipped bunch, the fear here is that to disseminate what we have in our arsenal enables rival nations to see what exactly kind we have (and can proceed to call our bluff, as circumstance may provide).

Military Secrets

Secret: Anything that Can Jeopardize a War or Endanger Troops’ Lives

This one is a no-brainer. In wartime, the locations of troops or any kind of strategies are off-limits as far as the public goes, for if the enemy caught wind, the consequences could be dire. Some secrets are kept for only the best of reasons.

Court Secrets

Secret: Details of a Court Proceeding that Might Influence the Jury and/or a Case’s Outcome

Witnessing a court case in sessions is to see the justice system kick with life, which is like seeing a doe in the wild. It is a very delicate process, which is decided by individuals with no more the moral wisdom of anyone else picked at random, and which determines the fate and guilt/innocent a human being. And being that no one in this setting is anything but human–one capable of being mislead, influenced, baited, etc.– it makes sense that proceeding maintain a secrecy about certain case details which, in the wrong hands, could endanger participants. Similarly, details of an open investigation are off-limits, as such knowledge could influence the outcome of a case itself.

Pretty Much Anything

Secret: Anything the Government Deems “Classified.”

The government has a strict, multi-level classification by which it deems sensitive materials to be off limits to all but a select, entrusted few. Three different levels, from most critical to least, are: “Top Secret,” “Secret,” “Confidential,” and “Restricted” (the rest are “Unclassified”). The more secret it is, the more harm that could come from the learning of. Items falling under such categories include, but aren’t limited to, military plans, negotiation tactics, weapon designs, and other secrets obtained by spurious means. Also, for those conspiracy theorists among us, there may very well exist proof of first contact somewhere within those crowded filing cabinets.

Ways Animals Could Take Over the World

Do you ever look at your dog while he’s sleeping quietly on the floor and think “he could get up and eat my face off right now if he wanted to?” He doesn’t because dogs have found an easier way to survive in the world other than eating human feces—namely, mooching off us. But, there’s no denying he could do some serious damage if he wanted to—especially if he was in a pack of his canine brothers.

And while most dogs have an easy lot in life and may not feel inclined to rebel, what about all the wild animals that are tired of living under the boots of humans and having their habitats destroyed? What would happen if they decided to unite against people? Could they do it? Surely not, you may think. After all, humans are at the top of the food chain for a reason. But, perhaps their only downfall is a lack of organization. If they could just get together and combine their skills, they’d actually have a good chance of wiping out the human race. Here’s how:

Spring Attack

Even in our best Ghillie suits, to animals, most humans still look like big, bumbling primates bounding through the woods. In other words, they can usually see us coming a mile away. In contrast, many animals are masters of disguise, which they can use to either hide or hunt without detection.

Setting aside the myriad of ocean animals that blend in perfectly with their surroundings, there are plenty of land animals like owls, moths, snakes, lions, insects and more that can make themselves invisible. Perhaps the most impressive display of camouflage is the leaf insect, which looks so astoundingly like a leaf it could easily fool anyone. They even have brown spots and areas that look like bites or wilts to make them appear more authentic, and when it walks, it moves side to side like a leaf rustling in the wind.

But by far, the most repulsive form of camouflage is that of the bird dropping spider,which disguises itself by looking like, yep you guessed it . . . Poop. In particular: bird poop. Creatures that like eating feces are few and far between, so this spider stays relatively safe by hanging out in the trees all day waiting for unsuspecting moths to pass by (they release a pheromone that mimics the scent of female moths).

It’s obvious how concealed animals like lions and snakes could pose a threat to humans, but a swarm of otherwise harmless leaf insects could participate in our destruction as well. Could you imagine a tree full of leaves suddenly coming alive? Such an event would startle any human and give other, more dangerous animals time to launch a spring attack.

With Us Out

If they can’t destroy us right off the bat, the animals could go into hibernation or dormancy and lull us into a state of complacency until they’re ready for their final assault. Certain rodents, birds, snakes, bears, turtles, and reptiles go into hibernation for months at a time. There’s even a primate called the fat-tailed dwarf lemur that hibernates. Turns out, these lemurs gorge themselves with food for a few months, which they convert to fat and store in their tails (of all places). Then they chill in a tree for seven months and subsist on whatever’s packed away in their jumbo tails.

Still, one of the most extreme hibernates is a type of cicada that only emerges every seventeen years. The rest of the time it stays underground going through a ridiculously long life cycle waiting to come out in a swarm of Biblical proportions. While they can’t directly harm humans, they can wreak havoc on food crops and vegetation.

Poison Us

Imagine if there were venomous humans able to inject others with a toxic substance with just a bite or scratch. It would be legendary—the stuff of comic books. But, in the animal world it’s a commonplace superpower had by spiders, snakes, lizards, frogs, fish, birds, and even a handful of mammals.

One such mammal is the slow loris, a primate with brachial glands on the inside of its elbows that secretes a brown fluid (disgusting, right?) When the loris licks up the nastiness he is basically creating toxic saliva that he can then inflict on enemies through a bite. Oddly enough, the toxin is very similar to the allergen found in domestic cats; however, instead of making you sneeze it can cause anaphylaxis.

Sure, we all know to stay away from the creepy crawlies, but the slow loris, duck-billed platypus, and hooded pitohui (bird) could all lure us in with their cuteness and then destroy us with their venom.

Psych Us Out

Some animals don’t even need to be that intimidating to hasten our demise. They just need to use the favorite punch line of every kid who grew up in the 90s—psych! That’s right, animals like the opossum, hog nose snake, wasp, cricket, and Cichlid fish can lie down and fake their own deaths, only to get up and strike when the time is right (although, admittedly, crickets and Cichlids don’t seem very threatening).

Some are really convincing too, and can dupe you even when you know fakers exist. In fact, the hognose snake can lie limply on its back and cause a foul-smelling, death-like fluid to ooze from its body. Needless to say, nobody’s going to think that stinky thing’s alive, which gives the snake the perfect opportunity to flip over and bite you.

Learn Our Secrets

It seems animals, such as parrots, understand our language better than we originally thought and, judging by our increasingly floundering education system, they might be able to outwit us fairly soon.

Researchers say parrots are already stringing together multiple words to not just mimic human speech but to use it to communicate. One hungry parrot advanced from saying “want nut” to “want a nut,” and then specified what type of nut he wanted by saying, “want a cork nut.” That’s pretty impressive considering some human teenagers simply emerge from their rooms and grunt when they have the case of the munchies.

Also parrots and other talking birds are quite adept at teaching each other what they know. For instance, across parts of Australia people can hear strange voices coming from the treetops and, while they’re hearing English, the words are coming from birds not people. It seems to escape birds (mostly parrots and cockatoos), have started teaching wild birds the language they picked up while living with humans. And apparently bird owners get a kick out of turning their pets into potty mouths, as witnesses say they’ve heard more than a few expletives being repeated in the forests.

Of course most of the birds are just mimicking, but they’ve definitely shown a capacity to learn language. Who’s to say they won’t secretly become masters of our language and then spy on us (possibly team up with the geckos) to thwart our plans against the animal invasion?

Night attack

If animals really want to catch us at our weakest, they need only attack us at night. While we’d be running around stubbing our toes and tripping over carpets, they could navigate the darkness with razor-sharp precision and unleash their fury at their convenience.

Just consider snakes. Many of them, such as pit vipers and some boa constrictors, have the equivalent of our infrared goggles built right into their bodies. These organs, which are on both sides of their heads, detect heat and produce a heat map image which the reptiles use to zone in on their prey.

And while the snakes are giving us their worst, the felines could easily join in on the wrath by relying on the special light sensitive cells in the back of their retinas to show them the way. This shiny layer of cells, the tapetum lucidum, reflects light back into the retina, effectively giving cats a second chance to absorb every photon. The reflective nature of these cells is also the reason why cat eyes seem to glow at night, and a pack of glowing cat eyes is enough to freak out any human. It’s true, they can’t see in total darkness, but because their eyes are so efficient, they need only a small sliver of moonlight or even the tiny standby light on your TV to unleash an assault.

Evasion

Humans have come up with all kinds of contraptions to make it possible for us to scale walls and traverse water, but some animals already have those skills mastered. Take the gecko, for instance. These lizards can walk up a vertical piece of glass without missing a step.

How do they do it? Unlike animals that use sticky residue or surface tension to seemingly defy gravity, geckos have pads on their toes made up of thousands off-site—hair-like things—that are so small they create a molecular bond between the gecko’s feet and the surface on which it’s walking. The really cool part is they can turn the adhesion on and off as needed and seem to only use it when at certain angles.

In the battle for animal domination, the gecko and other animals like it, such as the basilisk lizard which can walk on water, would make great counterintelligence agents for the animal side, as they could spy on our efforts and then make speedy getaways up buildings and across nearby bodies of water.

Get We Really, Really Lost

While our ancestors could find their way by following the stars, and our parents and grandparents got from place to place by using maps, today many of us would be totally screwed if our car’s turn-by-turn navigation system went kaput. We’ve simply forgotten how to find our way.

All animals need to do is lure us into the woods (perhaps with the promise of free donuts—everyone loves free donuts) and get us hopelessly turned around. We’d never find our way out and, because we’ve lost all our survival instincts, we’d surely perish in a couple of weeks.

On the other hand, some animals have a remarkable way of finding their way back home no matter where you leave them. Just look at the homing pigeon. Pigeons, often dubbed rats with wings, are arguably the most scorned bird on the planet but even they can find their way home from distances of more than 1,100 miles (1,770 km). How do they do it? Apparently nobody knows for sure. Scientists used to think it was of iron in the bird’s beaks that responded with the Earth’s magnetic field, but recent studies have disproven that notion.

And the birds aren’t the only ones with baffling internal homing beacons. All types of animals migrate on a yearly basis—gray whales travel over 10,000 miles (16,000 km)—and we’ve all heard stories of dogs and cats who went missing for months or years and later showed up on their owner’s front steps, tails wagging.

Weather Prediction

With their strength, claws, teeth, and general destructive power, animals could easily take out our technological infrastructure. Once they successfully cut us off from our technology, they could weed many of us out by letting us die in natural disasters. While we’re dependent on meteorological and seismic data to predict earth’s changes, many animals have an extra sense that enables them to detect when bad weather—or disasters such as earthquakes—are approaching. So, if we’re devoid of technology, the next time a tsunami or hurricane approaches, the animals can simply run for the hills and leave the humans to get washed out to sea.

Take the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2005, for example. That was one rare instance where humans had no idea that disaster was about to strike. What happened? 150,000 people died. Conversely, relatively few animals were reported dead, and those that did die were primarily domestic animals who couldn’t escape their homes or pens. Apparently, animals of every kind fled to higher ground before the tragedy and, according to Alan Rabinowitz, director for science and exploration at the Bronx-Zoo, they did it by sensing subtle changes in the environment, as they can detect changes in electromagnetic fields and air pressure. But, the real bummer is that humans—more than likely—had the same capabilities in the past but lost them from disuse. Lazy humans.

Super Strength

When was the last time you went to the gym? Yeah, I thought so. The truth is most of us are fat, slow, and getting weaker with each generation. Even if we were at our fittest, there are all sorts of animals that could overpower us. Case in point: chimpanzees.

Considering they’re our genetic cousins, they have the biggest potential for becoming our future overlords, and their extreme strength and physical prowess give them a considerable advantage, as they are three to five times stronger than humans. The reason they are so strong is because they don’t have as much muscle control as humans and consequently use more of their muscles all the time. The downside is they have less refined motor skills.

As a Smithsonianmag blogger so astutely puts it, “We might not be able to fight off a chimp, but we can make some pretty amazing needlepoints,”—not too helpful in a chimp apocalypse.

Even some of the most minuscule of animals, such as the ant, are comparatively stronger than humans. Ants can carry loads fifty times their own weight and, in one year, move around fifty tons of soil per square mile. That’s a lot of dirt! If they put their minds to it, they could unite and destroy the foundations of all our buildings just by shifting the soil.

Latest Top 10 Medical Inventions

Latest Top 10 Medical Inventions

Medicine is heavily depending on Electromedical equipment and developed to treat patients and to develop new novel strategies to deal with more complex and complicated problems. Here is the list of top 10 innovations in the field of Electromedical equipment in the recent times.

10. Clamp For Traumatic Bleeding

Inspired by the hair clip someone came up with the idea of designing a gadget which could be used as a clamp to stop traumatic bleeding. It is handy to carry and very easy to apply. It approximates both the edges of the skin to close the wound and stop the bleeding.

09. A Chip Designed To Diagnose Flu

This microfluidic chip is very handy in diagnosing flu especially for screening during endemics like that of H1N1 during 2009. More traditional methods like viral cultures and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique are more expensive, lab intensive, lengthy and time consuming.

This chip is quick, cheap and sensitive in detecting flu virus. It is composed of three subdivisions, top column extracts RNA from specific proteins of the flu virus, middle chamber converts RNA into DNA and in climate controlled bottom channel DNA is detected by an external reader.

08. Your iPhone Can Check Your body Temperature

ThermoDock is an infrared device, which can be plugged in iPhone and then directed at the forehead to record its temperature. This device does not have to be in contact with the body surface to record its temperature hence you can also check the temperature of your coffee without bringing your iPhone in contact with it. This device can also record the ambient, room and outdoor, temperatures.

07. A Novel Approach To Reduce The Rate Of Eating Disorders

A piece of legislation has been passed in Israel to bar ultra-thin and skinny models from appearing in advertisements and shows. It also requires all types of media to mention prominently alongside the pictures of both male and female models when these have been photo-shopped to make them appear thinner than they actually are. It is said that this approach will help curb the eating disorders among the general public who usually copy the celebrity figures like models, actresses and actors.

06. A Cheaper And Quicker Method Of Detecting Malaria And HIV

This is an origami paper device, which is very cheap to print and takes very short time for folding. In this technique a hydrophobic substance such as wax is applied on the chromatography paper, to channelize the under test sample (blood, urine, saliva etc.) towards the reagents which have been embedded over a few spots on the paper. If the sample contains (glucose, HIV, malaria, etc.), for whatever it is being tested than a specific reaction occurs such paper turning into a specific color or showing two lines instead of one hence indicating presence of a disease very quickly and at a very low cost.

05. 4 Wheel Drive Next Generation Wheel Chair

This vehicle has been named as permoveh or personal mobility vehicle. It is stable, can navigate through tight spaces and has very easy maneuverability in all directions. It is maneuvered by the user with a hand held control. It has four wheels of similar shape and size and each wheel is fitted with 32 rollers which rotate perpendicular to the direction of the rim. For forward and backward movement wheels alone move for sideways movement rollers alone move and for diagonal movement both wheels and rollers move.

04. Regeneration Of Burned Faces

The traditional treatment of burns involves removal of damaged tissue and its replacement with grafts, which can lead to various complications including speech problems, deformities and scarring and it also requires multiple surgeries.

The new, under research technique of smart biomass  consists of a face-shaped rigid shell, which is covered by flexible polymer layers with embedded electrical and mechanical components. The polymer layers are pushed up against the wounds by the actuators and the inner mechanism is held in place by the outer shell over a period of months during which patient wears masks. A sub-atmospheric pressure is created within the layers by a network of  microwave and microfluidic channels. The formation of this vacuum promotes healing of the wounds while the growth factor and stem cells are pumped into the injured tissues of face to promote regeneration. Feedback about the condition of the specific wound areas is provided by the sensors. This technique can lead to the speedy recovery and reduction in the number of operations that the burn patients have to undergo.

03. Use Of The Tongue To Operate Computer, Wheel Chair

The patients with paralysis of both arms and legs (e.g; patients having ALS or high level spinal cord injury) have traditionally been using sip and puff technique to operate powered wheelchairs and computers. Sip and puff technique requires the user to sip or puff precise amount of air into a straw to issue a command. In the latest development these patients can use their tongue to issue a command just by pointing to it in the desired direction. In this technique movements of a magnet, embedded in the tongue, are detected by the sensors, which are retained by a retainer fitted in the roof of the mouth.

2. Devices Flowing In The Blood Stream

A new generation of implantable devices is being introduced which are so small that they can travel through our blood stream and are powered wirelessly by electromagnetic radio-waves. These devices travel by the blood stream and reach the target site in the human body and perform various diagnostic and therapeutic procedures like, performing microscopic imaging study of the target tissue, removing a blood clot or after being implanted in or near the site of tumor emitting targeted radiation at the malignant cells not only to significantly prolong survival of the cancer patients but also avoid the deleterious effects of conventional radiation therapy for cancer.

01. GPS Shoes

People with amnesia, dementia or poor memory tends to forget their way home. It is said that if you forget where have you placed your keys then it is alright but if you forget how to use your keys then it is definitely Alzheimer’s or dementia. GPS-fitted shoes are a befitting  solution to this problem however these shoes also require to be remembered to wear in order to be useful.