Random Articles (Page 2)
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๐ Non-photo blue
Non-photo blue (or non-repro blue) is a common tool used in the graphic design and print industry.
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- "Non-photo blue" | 2015-11-21 | 138 Upvotes 41 Comments
๐ Unethical human experimentation in the United States
Unethical human experimentation in the United States describes numerous experiments performed on human test subjects in the United States that have been considered unethical, and were often performed illegally, without the knowledge, consent, or informed consent of the test subjects. Such tests have occurred throughout American history, but particularly in the 20th century. The experiments include: the exposure of humans to many chemical and biological weapons (including infection with deadly or debilitating diseases), human radiation experiments, injection of toxic and radioactive chemicals, surgical experiments, interrogation and torture experiments, tests involving mind-altering substances, and a wide variety of others. Many of these tests were performed on children, the sick, and mentally disabled individuals, often under the guise of "medical treatment". In many of the studies, a large portion of the subjects were poor, racial minorities, or prisoners.
Funding for many of the experiments was provided by the United States government, especially the United States military, the Central Intelligence Agency, or private corporations involved with military activities. The human research programs were usually highly secretive, and in many cases information about them was not released until many years after the studies had been performed.
The ethical, professional, and legal implications of this in the United States medical and scientific community were quite significant, and led to many institutions and policies that attempted to ensure that future human subject research in the United States would be ethical and legal. Public outrage in the late 20th century over the discovery of government experiments on human subjects led to numerous congressional investigations and hearings, including the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission, both of 1975, and the 1994 Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, among others.
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- "Unethical human experimentation in the United States" | 2016-09-29 | 24 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Unethical human experimentation in the United States" | 2013-10-08 | 36 Upvotes 5 Comments
- "Unethical human experimentation in the United States" | 2013-02-19 | 5 Upvotes 14 Comments
๐ US Gold Reserve Act
The United States Gold Reserve Act of January 30, 1934 required that all gold and gold certificates held by the Federal Reserve be surrendered and vested in the sole title of the United States Department of the Treasury. It also prohibited the Treasury and financial institutions from redeeming dollar bills for gold, established the Exchange Stabilization Fund under control of the Treasury to control the dollarโs value without the assistance (or approval) of the Federal Reserve, and authorized the president to establish the gold value of the dollar by proclamation.
Immediately following passage of the Act, the President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, changed the statutory price of gold from $20.67 per troy ounce to $35. This price change incentivized gold miners globally to expand production and foreigners to export their gold to the United States, while simultaneously devaluing the U.S. dollar by increasing inflation. The increase in gold reserves due to the price change resulted in a large accumulation of gold in the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury, much of which was stored in the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox and other locations. The increase in gold reserves increased the money supply, lowering real interest rates which in turn increased investment in durable goods.
A year earlier, in 1933, Executive Order 6102 had made it a criminal offense for U.S. citizens to own or trade gold anywhere in the world, with exceptions for some jewelry and collector's coins. These prohibitions were relaxed starting in 1964 โ gold certificates were again allowed for private investors on April 24, 1964, although the obligation to pay the certificate holder on demand in gold specie would not be honored. By 1975 Americans could again freely own and trade gold.
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- "US Gold Reserve Act" | 2021-10-05 | 15 Upvotes 39 Comments
๐ Brainbow
Brainbow is a process by which individual neurons in the brain can be distinguished from neighboring neurons using fluorescent proteins. By randomly expressing different ratios of red, green, and blue derivatives of green fluorescent protein in individual neurons, it is possible to flag each neuron with a distinctive color. This process has been a major contribution to the field of connectomics, traditionally known as hodology, which is the study of neural connections in the brain.
The technique was originally developed in 2007 by a team led by Jeff W. Lichtman and Joshua R. Sanes, both at Harvard University. The original technique has recently been adapted for use with other model organisms including Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Arabidopsis thaliana.
While earlier labeling techniques allowed for the mapping of only a few neurons, this new method allows more than 100 differently mapped neurons to be simultaneously and differentially illuminated in this manner. The resulting images can be quite striking and have won awards in science photography competitions.
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- "Brainbow" | 2020-07-26 | 16 Upvotes 3 Comments
๐ Wirth's Law
Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster.
The adage is named after Niklaus Wirth, who discussed it in his 1995 article "A Plea for Lean Software".
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- "Wirth's Law" | 2025-07-26 | 19 Upvotes 6 Comments
- "Wirth's Law" | 2024-11-14 | 12 Upvotes 2 Comments
- "Wirth's Law" | 2022-07-17 | 15 Upvotes 8 Comments
- "Wirth's Law - Software gets slower more quickly than hardware gets faster" | 2016-10-16 | 40 Upvotes 8 Comments
- "Wirth's law" | 2016-03-20 | 10 Upvotes 3 Comments
๐ Beauvais Cathedral
The Cathedral of Saint Peter of Beauvais (French: Cathรฉdrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais) is a Roman Catholic church in the northern town of Beauvais, Oise, France. It is the seat of the Bishop of Beauvais, Noyon and Senlis.
The cathedral is in the Gothic style, and consists of a 13th-century choir, with an apse and seven polygonal apsidal chapels reached by an ambulatory, joined to a 16th-century transept.
It has the highest Gothic choir in the world: (48.50 m) under vault. From 1569 to 1573 the cathedral of Beauvais was, with its tower of 153 meters, the highest human construction of the world. Its designers had the ambition to make it the largest gothic cathedral in France ahead of Amiens. Victim of two collapses, one in the 13th century, the other in the 16th century, it remains unfinished today; only the choir and the transept have been built.
The planned nave of the cathedral was never constructed. The remnant of the previous 10th-century Romanesque cathedral, known as the Basse ลuvre ("Lower Work"), still occupies the intended site of the nave.
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- "Beauvais Cathedral" | 2023-01-26 | 49 Upvotes 22 Comments
๐ DownsโThomson paradox
The DownsโThomson paradox (named after Anthony Downs and John Michael Thomson), also known as the PigouโKnightโDowns paradox (after Arthur Cecil Pigou and Frank Knight), states that the equilibrium speed of car traffic on a road network is determined by the average door-to-door speed of equivalent journeys taken by public transport.
It is a paradox in that improvements in the road network will not reduce traffic congestion. Improvements in the road network can make congestion worse if the improvements make public transport more inconvenient or if it shifts investment, causing disinvestment in the public transport system.
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- "DownsโThomson paradox" | 2019-06-08 | 39 Upvotes 3 Comments
๐ Cantu a tenore
The cantu a tenรฒre (Sardinian: su tenรฒre, su cuncรฒrdu, su cuntrร ttu, su cussรจrtu, s'agorropamรจntu, su cantu a prรฒa; Italian: canto a tenore) is a style of polyphonic folk singing characteristic of the island of Sardinia (Italy's second largest island), particularly the region of Barbagia, though some other Sardinian sub-regions bear examples of such tradition.
In 2005, UNESCO proclaimed the cantu a tenore to be an example of intangible cultural heritage.
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- "Cantu a tenore" | 2023-03-29 | 69 Upvotes 26 Comments
๐ Illegal prime
An illegal prime is a prime number that represents information whose possession or distribution is forbidden in some legal jurisdictions. One of the first illegal primes was found in 2001. When interpreted in a particular way, it describes a computer program that bypasses the digital rights management scheme used on DVDs. Distribution of such a program in the United States is illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An illegal prime is a kind of illegal number.
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- "Illegal Prime Numbers" | 2021-04-12 | 218 Upvotes 107 Comments
- "Illegal prime" | 2018-04-27 | 267 Upvotes 192 Comments
- "Illegal prime" | 2016-11-22 | 39 Upvotes 26 Comments
- "Illegal prime number" | 2014-07-30 | 59 Upvotes 30 Comments
- "Illegal Prime Numbers" | 2013-10-17 | 178 Upvotes 58 Comments
- "Illegal prime" | 2010-01-11 | 152 Upvotes 76 Comments
๐ ISO 1
ISO 1 is an international standard set by the International Organization for Standardization that specifies the standard reference temperature for geometrical product specification and verification. The temperature is fixed at 20 ยฐC, which is equal to 293.15 kelvins and 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
Due to thermal expansion, precision length measurements need to be made at (or converted to) a defined temperature. ISOย 1 helps in comparing measurements by defining such a reference temperature. The reference temperature of 20ย ยฐC was adopted by the CIPM on 15 April 1931, and became ISO recommendation number 1 in 1951. It soon replaced worldwide other reference temperatures for length measurements that manufacturers of precision equipment had used before, including 0ย ยฐC, 62ย ยฐF, and 25ย ยฐC. Among the reasons for choosing 20ย ยฐC was that this was a comfortable and practical workshop temperature and that it resulted in an integer value on both the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales.
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- "ISO 1" | 2013-11-09 | 94 Upvotes 17 Comments