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Absolutely hilarious.

View this funny Toilet in Meeting video clip.

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Oh, well, originally I was thinking about buying a rubik’s cube and solving it by following this instruction video. Now that supercomputer can solve it in less than 26 moves, what’s the point of solving it myself?

Rubik’s cube has foxed people since the early 1980s.

The ultimate solution to the Rubik’s cube has come closer thanks to hours of number crunching on a supercomputer.

The research has proved that a Rubik’s cube can be returned to its original state in no more than 26 moves.

The supercomputer took 63 hours to crank out the proof which goes one better than the previous best solution.

The two computer scientists behind the research project believe that with more work they could push the move count even lower.

Cube crunching

It took some smart thinking by graduate student Daniel Kunkle and Gene Cooperman from Northeastern University in Boston to come up with the proof because cranking through the 43 billion billion possible Rubik’s cube positions would take too long even for a supercomputer.

Instead, the scientists used a two-step technique in their calculations.

Initially, they programmed the supercomputer to arrive at one of 15,000 half-solved solutions. They knew they could fully solve any of these 15,000 cubes with a few extra moves.

The results showed that any disordered cube could be fully solved in a maximum of 29 moves, but that most cubes took 26 moves or fewer.

The researchers then focused on the small number of “problem” configurations that required more than 26 moves.

Because there were so few “problem” configurations, the researchers could use the supercomputer to search for the best way to fully solve these cubes.

As it turned out the supercomputer was able to fully solve all of these special cases in fewer than 26 moves.

Read more: bbc.co.uk

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Ever wonder why nerves don’t break when your body stretches? Traditional research model proposes “neurofilaments” provide the strength and flexibility for nerve cells.

But scientists have discovered a new protein that explains why a long nerve doesn’t break upon stretching.

Beta spectrin protein stops nerve cells from breaking.

Nerve cell stretchiness uncovered

US scientists may have discovered why long nerve cells do not break when you move or stretch your limbs.
Experiments in worms showed that when a protein called beta spectrin is missing, nerve cells are brittle and break, leading to paralysis.

The finding may help to explain why people with a condition called spinocerebellar ataxia progressively lose co-ordination and movement.

The University of Utah study is in the Journal of Cell Biology.

Humans have four genes responsible for the production of beta spectrin protein.

Recent studies have shown that people with a condition called spinocerebellar ataxia type 5, a neurodegenerative disease that develops between the ages of 10 and 68, have a mutation in one of the genes.

It was previously thought that the mutation in this protein meant cells could not communicate properly because the necessary proteins would not be anchored in place.

But research by Professor Michael Bastiani and colleagues at the University of Utah suggests that a mutation in or absence of the protein causes long nerve fibres (axons) to lose their flexibility and break.

When nematode worms were bred without beta spectrin their nerve axons died over time and caused paralysis.

In worm embryos only 3% of nerve cells were broken or defective but that grew to 60% by the time the worms were a day old, suggesting the protein is not responsible for initial growth of nerve cells but for preventing breakage later on.

Nerve function

Professor Bastiani said the team found it “incredible” that the one protein was responsible for preventing nerves breaking in your whole body.

“The entire functioning of the nervous system depends on these wire-like axons between nerve cells,” he said.

He added that when the worms were paralysed by a second mutation the nerve axons did not break because the worms were not moving around.

“What was surprising was in the past, it’s always been embedded in the literature that the thing that provides the strength and flexibility was the neurofilaments.

“We’re proposing a completely different model.”

Read more: bbc.co.uk

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Mmmm….yummy….that must taste great.

View this funny Castro Dog Food Ad video clip.

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A very nicely done comedy incorporated with magic tricks. In case you can’t figure out how they do the magics, they reveal the tricks in the show.

View this Comedy Show with Magic Performance video clip.

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