“In Silicon Valley we have the highest concentration of aggressive people in the United States. And it's a place where all life has been reduced to working in a cubicle and then after work going out to have a Merlot at the Fromage bar. I'm kind of looking for something a little more primitive, a little more basic, something that appeals to the essential nature of a man." Watch the video below.

Playboy is introducing a line of men's toiletries worldwide, shower gels, body sprays and fragrances. This is the 60-second launch spot from DDB in Paris: "You are flirting with a hot female stranger in an elevator and you press the emergency button. Here's what could happen." Watch the video below.

A Chinese manufacturer has introduced the Model MK802, a $74 USB thumb-drive sized computer, liliputing reports, beating the FXI Cotton Candy PC on a stick to market (it will be available soon for $200). The MK802 is available from AliExpress for $74, or less if you order in bulk. It has a 1.5 GHz Allwiner A10 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, USB port, microSD card slot, and HDMI port. It also features 802.11b/g WiFi and support for HD video playback in a variety of media formats.

It ships with Google Android 4.0 software, but theoretically you should be able to install Ubuntu or other operating systems.

Zero Devices is preparing to launch the Z802 which looks nearly identical, except for the Zero Devices logo on the front of the device, and available for pre-order from some sources for about $76.

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'Us', a multi-disciplinary award winning design & direction studio, tell their insight: ''When we were asked to pitch on the promo they sent us the track as a 'Soundcloud' link, we usually get it sent as an MP3. For the first time we were not just listening to the track we were also watching it. There was something mesmerising about this in its simplicity. This ignited the idea to create a real life three dimensional waveform. 

We started to think about the fact that a vast amount of our music is consumed online and has lost a sense of physicality this lead us to the idea of using vinyl records. We also loved the way it related to Benga as an artist who's background comes from using records as a DJ or producer.

The maths worked we would need 960 records to create 1 minute and 20 seconds worth of wave form. Each one had to be individually cut to a specific size, hand labeled, hand numbered and then finally polished. This prep took 7 full working days and then the animation process took around 30 hours.''

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Nicole Trunfio (born 16 March 1986) is an Australian model from Merredin, 
a small country town in Western Australia.

NEW YORK - A prominent retired psychiatrist is apologizing to the gay community for a decade-old study that concluded some gay people can go straight through what's called reparative therapy. Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, formerly of Columbia University, now says he no longer believes his work showed that.

For the study, Spitzer had interviewed 200 people who'd claimed some degree of change. The "fatal flaw" is that there is no way to judge the credibility of their accounts, Spitzer says in a letter he submitted last month to a journal that published his work in 2003.

The work made headlines when he presented it at a 2001 meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. One reason for the attention was that Spitzer had played a leading role 30 years before in removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the association's diagnostic manual.

Spitzer's study was attacked by critics who questioned the reliability of the accounts from the people he interviewed. At the time, Spitzer acknowledged that he had no proof their stories were accurate, but said several aspects of their accounts suggested their statements could not be dismissed out of hand.

Now he says his reasoning was wrong, and that "there was no way to determine if the subject's accounts of change were valid," he wrote in a letter to the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Spitzer, who lives in Princeton, N.J., sent a copy to The Associated Press after a reporter interviewed him about his change of heart.

"I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy," Spitzer wrote. "I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some 'highly motivated' individuals." 

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Sometimes an experiment will just reach off the page and slap you in the face, demanding attention. This happens to me every so often and I must admit, our latest paper from the lab of Florien Engert induced such an experience. There have been several cool, technical tours-de-force over the last few years involving different creatures navigating in a virtual environment while neuronal activity was monitored. 

These include a mouse running on a spherical treadmill, as well as a fly marching along a similar treadmill-style ball. But in these examples, having the subject head-fixed (for the stability of recordings in the brain, either with electrodes or through imaging) was moderately non-intrusive since walking motions were independent of the head. The same can’t be said for the subject in this latest example of a virtual reality navigator: a wriggling, swimming fish. Therefore, a more creative solution had to be sought and in a paper published online yesterday, Ahrens, Engert and colleagues decided that paralysis was the way to go in order to follow the neural activity of this navigating fish.

Zebrafish have long been used as a model system for a variety of experiments, but motor control long been at the forefront of topics. They offer many distinct advantages over mammalian-based systems, including the genetic tractability of Drosophila and the ease with which microscopy methods can be utilized; larval zebrafish are transparent, so no surgery is required in order to open up a “window” for fluorescence imaging. And more recently, several labs have begun to develop rich behavioral methods to further explore the limits of probing functional circuitry in these beasts. So what was interesting and cool about this latest fish-based technology? From the authors, here is the system set-up:

To examine neural dynamics across brain areas that drive sensorimotor recalibration, we developed a system to study neural activity at cellular resolution17, 18, using two-photon microscopy19, anywhere in the brain20 during closed-loop optomotor behaviour in larval zebrafish. These animals have a small and transparent brain that is readily accessible for optogenetic recording and stimulation21, 22, electrophysiology23 and single-cell ablation24. To remove motion artefacts25, 26, we developed a swim simulator for completely paralysed larvae (Fig. 1a). Motor commands, or ‘fictive swims’, are recorded at the motor neuron level8, 27, 28 (Fig. 1c, d) and translated, in real time, into visual feedback that resembles the optic flow of freely swimming fish (Methods). This constitutes a fictively driven virtual-reality setup. Simultaneously, a two-photon microscope scanning over a transgenic fish expressing GCaMP2 (ref. 29) in almost all neurons20,30 allows activity to be monitored throughout the brain at single-neuron resolution. As the experimenter is in complete control of the visual feedback, this allowed us to study neural dynamics during visually guided motor adaptation throughout the brain at the cellular level.

Allow me to translate: “WE CREATED “THE MATRIX” FOR FISH.

Using this system, the authors were able to break down neural response properties during behavioral adaptation to perturbations in the virtual environment into four different categories, and the excellent spatial resolution of this technique allowed them to accurately map the anatomical substrate for each response. Some of these responses were observed while the fish was progressing through behavioral adjustments to the stimulus provided in the virtual world, strongly suggesting that focus on these elements could potentially yield functional insights into adaptive motor learning. Indeed, laser-based lesioning of one identified site, the inferior olive, did negatively affect visually-induced motor adaptation learning. Therefore, the authors had identified a powerful model for the study of brain-wide activity during adaptive locomotion.

The reviews for this paper were quite positive with regards to the innovative technology and each easily recognized the potential for this system, but the original version of the manuscript failed to provide a “proof-of-principle” for its utility; i.e., demonstrating novel insights into motor adaptation programs. Two referees even had concerns that there was a novelty issue when comparing this system to other virtual reality set-ups, including those mentioned earlier. At Nature, we aren’t shy about publishing manuscripts that are wholly-focused on technology and innovation, but in this particular case, although I was dazzled by the technique, we needed to go a little deeper into the biology in order to differentiate this system from the others and demonstrate its power. One could potentially make the argument that working in zebrafish is not as common as working in mammals or even insects, so if this paper was to be significant for a very broad audience, we had to throw some biology at the reader, in addition to the cool kit.

The authors graciously agreed to explore the circuitry further, adding new experiments to test the role and functionality of some of the neural response properties they observed. It took some time to get everything right, but in the end, both editors and (most) reviewers were satisfied that this paper had reached a point where it was not only showcasing the methodology, but also providing some novel biological insights. I say “most” because as is the case often times, not all reviewers were on board with the changes. In a rare occurrence, one reviewer was strongly supportive of publication in the initial round, with this existing more as a methods paper, but soured as the paper became more complex. The “biological insight” observations and extra modeling were not as graciously received, with this reviewer feeling these parts detracted from the rest of the paper. It’s not that this referee undervalues biological insight, rather the main concern was that the new insights require greater development and more sophisticated manipulation beyond lesion-based experiments to provide real value (one can imagine the power of working optogenetics into this set-up.) Fair enough, but in the end we felt the manuscript benefited from this brief, natural extension, to best-demonstrate the power of an exciting new system. 

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LONDON - With his carefully tended hair, tight trousers and perfect harmonies, Robin Gibb, along with his brothers Maurice and Barry, defined the disco era. As part of the Bee Gees - short for the Brothers Gibb - they created dance floor classics like "Stayin Alive," "Jive Talkin'," and "Night Fever" that can still get crowds onto a dance floor.

Robin Gibb, 62, died Sunday "following his long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery," his family announced in a statement released by Gibb's representative Doug Wright.

Gibb was the second disco-era star to die this week. Donna Summer - who earned the Queen of Disco title by singing "Last Dance" and "I Feel Love" - died of cancer in Florida on Thursday.
The Bee Gees, born in England but raised in Australia, began their career in the musically rich 1960s but it was their soundtrack for the 1977 movie "Saturday Night Fever" that sealed their success. The album's signature sound - some called it "blue-eyed soul" - remains instantly recognizable more than 40 years after its release.

The album remains a turning point in popular music history, ending the hard rock era and ushering in a time when dance music ruled supreme. It became one of the fastest-selling albums of all time with its innovative fusion of harmony and pulsing beats. The movie launched the career of a young John Travolta whose snake-hipped moves to the sounds of "You Should Be Dancing" established his reputation as a dancer and forever linked his image to that of the Bee Gees.

Recording Academy president Neil Portnow predicted that fans will dance to "Stayin' Alive" and other songs Bee Gees songs for generations to come.

"Robin has had an indelible impact on music," he said.

Despite financial success, Robin Gibb and his brothers endured repeated tragedies. Maurice died suddenly of intestinal and cardiac problems in 2003. Their younger brother Andy Gibb, who also enjoyed considerable chart success as a solo artist, had died in 1988 just after turning 30. He suffered from an inflamed heart muscle attributed to a severe viral infection.Robin Gibb himself took care of his health and, at the time of his death, was a vegan who did not drink alcohol.

Gibb was for decades a familiar figure on the pop stage, starting out in the 1960s when the Bee Gees were seen as talented Beatles copycats. They sounded so much like the Beatles at first that there were strong rumors that the Bee Gees' singles were really the Beatles performing under another name.

Many late-'60s bands were quickly forgotten, but the Bee Gees transformed themselves into an enduring A-List powerhouse with the almost unbelievable, and certainly unexpected, success of the song "Stayin' Alive" and others from the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack that accompanied the movie.

With this second wind, the Bee Gees sold more than 200 million records and had a long string of successful singles, making their way into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"Saturday Night Fever" - actually a compilation album featuring the Bee Gees but including songs by other performers - represented the pinnacle of Gibb's career, but he enjoyed more than 40 years of prominence as a Bee Gee, as a solo artist, and as a songwriter and producer for other artists.

The Bee Gees consisted of Barry Gibb, the eldest, and twins Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb. Their three-part harmonies became their musical signature, particularly in the disco phase, when Barry's matchless falsetto often dominated, and they were renowned for their wide-ranging songwriting and producing skills.

The Gibbs were born in England on the Isle of Man, an island in the Irish Sea, but moved to Australia with their parents in 1958 when they were still quite young and began their musical career there. They had been born into a musical family, with a father who was a drummer and bandleader and a mother who liked to sing.

After several hits in Australia, their career started to really take off when they returned to England in 1967 and linked up with promoter Robert Stigwood.

After several hits and successful albums, Robin Gibb left the group in 1969 after a series of disagreements, some focusing on whether he or Barry should be lead vocalist. He released some successful solo material - most notably "Saved by the Bell" - before rejoining his brothers in 1970 and scoring a major hit with "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart."

The Gibbs then suffered some slack years - searching for a style that could sustain them in the post-Beatles era - and Barry Gibb started experimenting with falsetto vocals, first on backup, and then in the lead position.

The brothers were at a low point when they went into a French studio to try to come up with some songs for the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack at the urging of Stigwood.

The success of those tunes - closely linked to the popularity of the movie, and the power of the disco movement - changed their lives forever, giving them a string of number one hits.

After several years of chart success, the Gibbs spent much of the 1980s writing songs and producing records for other artists, working closely with top talents such as Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and Dolly Parton. They also continued touring and releasing their own records.

Gibb also released more solo albums, including "Secret Agent," during this period.

The band continued in the 1990s, gaining recognition for their body of work with induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Then came Maurice's sudden death in 2003. The surviving brothers announced that the name Bee Gees would be retired with Maurice Gibb's death, although Robin and Barry did collaborate on projects and Robin Gibb continued his solo career and extensive touring despite mounting health problems.

He had to cancel several engagements in 2011, including one with British Prime Minister David Cameron, and he showed an alarming weight loss on his rare public appearances. He was hospitalized briefly in 2011 with what doctors said was an inflamed colon and had surgery for intestinal problems in March, 2012.

One of his final projects was "The Titanic Requiem," a classical work he co-wrote with his son RJ, that the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra premiered in April to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

Robin Gibb remained emotionally attached to the Isle of Man, keeping a house there as well as homes in rural Oxfordshire, England, and Miami.

He also became involved with numerous charities and worked to establish a permanent memorial to the veterans of Britain's World War II Bomber Command and recorded songs honoring British veterans.

Gibb is survived by his second wife, Dwina, and four children, as well as his mother Barbara, his older brother, fellow Bee Gee Barry Gibb, and his sister Lesley Evans, who lives in Australia.

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