Pheromone Party: A creative way to connect people using data - the analog/human way-

(via Dry T-Shirt Contest: Sniffing Armpit Stains at a Pseudoscientific Singles ‘Pheromone Party’ - Lifestyle - GOOD)

“Using the same data, very different stories can be told depending on different agendas,” says Deroy Peraza, one of the founders of Hyperakt. (via A Case Study In How Infographics Can Bend The Truth | Co.Design: business innovation design)

The information we consume and share on Facebook is actually much more diverse in nature than conventional wisdom might suggest. We are exposed to and spread more information from our distant contacts than our close friends. Since these distant contacts tend to be different from us, the bulk of information we consume and share comes from people with different perspectives. This may provide some comfort to those who worry that social networks are simply an echo chamber where people are only exposed to those who share the same opinions. Our work is among the first to rigorously quantify influence at a mass scale, and shows that online social networks can serve as an important medium for sharing new perspectives, products and world events.

(via Facebook Data: Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks)

Big “small” news: Smaller Magnetic Materials Push Boundaries of Nanotechnology - NYTimes.com #nanotech

What if… we used salmon as a data storage device? Read this story…

“Salmon … they’re good to eat, provide a livelihood for fishermen, are an important part of their ecosystem, and now it seems that they can store data. More specifically, their DNA can. Scientists from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany have created a “write-once-read-many-times” (WORM) memory device, that combines electrodes, silver nanoparticles, and salmon DNA. While the current device is simply a proof-of-concept model, the researchers have stated that DNA could turn out to be a less expensive alternative to traditional inorganic materials such as silicon”.

(via Salmon DNA used in data storage device)