Wondered Why Your Mouse Cursor Is Slanted Instead of Straight ?

Over on Stack Exchange, computer software developer Bart Gijssens revealed the following explanation of the slanted cursor's origins in response to this question on its design.

The mouse, and therefore the mouse cursor, was invented by Douglas Englebart, and was initially an arrow pointing up.

When the XEROX PARC machine was built, the cursor changed into a tilted arrow. It was found that, given the low resolution of the screens in those days, drawing a straight line and a line in the 45 degrees angle was easier to do and more recognizable than the straight cursor.

As you can see below, the original, straight cursor was indeed much more difficult to pick out amongst the blocks of basic text.

And as Gijssens points out in a later edit, after Englebart created the left-leaning cursor, Steve Jobs borrowed it for his software followed by Bill Gates who borrowed it after him. At this point, we've just become so accustomed to our leaning (and still highly functional!) arrow that anything else would seem too bizarre. Besides, why mess with perfection?

Lightning Strike Electrifies Train in Japan

During a thunderstorm rumbling over Tokyo on Monday, a flash of lightning struck a commuter train.
Video footage captured the precise moment the lightning illuminated the entire urban skyline before crashing into a train carriage full of passengers. You can hear the shocked cameraman reacting to the massive burst of light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EtDUBU2LTlU 

20 Gripping Photos of Extreme Weather

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  Lightning Hits Chicago

  Lightning strikes the Willis Tower in Chicago on June 12, 2013.

  IMAGE: SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

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  Extreme Drought in New Zealand

  Cows search for edible grass in drought strickened paddocks of Waiuku, New Zealand on March 12, 2013.

  IMAGE: SANDRA MU/GETTY IMAGES

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  Aurora Over Alaska

  The digitally enhanced photograph taken in January 2005 shows a spectacular aurora borealisabove the frozen landscape of Bear Lake, Alaska. The image was voted Wikipedia Commons Picture of the Year for 2006.

  IMAGE: JOSHUA STRANG, USAF, WIKIPEDIA, CAPTION VIA NASA

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  Mud Volcano Demonstration in Indonesia

  Displaced residents immerse themselves in massive mud deposits from the mud volcano in Sidoarjo village, located on Indonesia's eastern Java island on May 29, 2013 to dramatize their sufferings during a protest marking the seventh year of the disaster.

  IMAGE: UNI KRISWANTO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  Typhoon Waves in Qingdao, China

  A child watches as high waves caused by typhoon Bolaven crash over the side of a road barrier on Aug. 28, 2012 in Qingdao, China.

  IMAGE: CHINAFOTOPRESS VIA GETTY IMAGES

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  Roller Coaster Adrift in the Atlantic

  A roller coaster sits in the Atlantic Ocean after the Fun Town pier it sat on was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy on Nov. 1, 2012 in Seaside Heights, N.J. The roller coaster was removed by crane in May.

  IMAGE: MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES

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  Sandy Powers Down NYC

  Half of the New York City skyline sits in darkness after Hurricane Sandy, on Oct. 30, 2012. Photo taken in Weehawkin, N.J.

  IMAGE: ANDREW BURTON/GETTY IMAGES

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  Undersea Volcano in Tonga

  Picture dated March 18, 2009 shows an undersea volcano eruption about 6 to 7 miles off the Tongatapu coast of Tonga, sending plumes of steam and smoke hundreds of feet into the air. Tonga's head geologist, Kelepi Mafi, said there was no apparent danger to residents of Nuku'alofa and others living on the main island of Tongatapu. Image via Images

  IMAGE: LOTHAR SLABON/AFP/GETTY

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  Washington D.C.'s Historic Blizzard

  Three people assemble a snowman at the foot of The Washington Monument in Washington D.C., during a winter snowstorm that buried the city under record-breaking snowfall on Feb. 6, 2010.Image via CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP/Getty Images

  IMAGE: CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  Surfer and Tornado in Sydney

  A water spout (tornado) hits the sea behind a surfer on Sydney's Bondi Beach on May 17, 2010. A rare sight in Australia, the water spout lasted around five minutes and expired before landfall.

  IMAGE: JAMES ALCOCK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  Melting Ice in Greenland

  Ice boulders left behind after a flood caused by the overflowing of a lake, east of the town of Kangerlussuaq on Sept. 1, 2007 in Greenland. Scientists believe that Greenland, with its melting ice caps and disappearing glaciers, is an accurate thermometer of global warming.

  IMAGE: URIEL SINAI/GETTY IMAGES

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  Wall of Ash From Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in Iceland

  Volcanic scientists leave the area after collecting samples of ash to send to labs to analyze its content, in eastern Iceland on April 15, 2010. A cloud of ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, which erupted on the morning of April 14, 2010 disrupted European airspace for several days. Image via OMAR OSKARSSON/AFP/Getty Images

  IMAGE: OMAR OSKARSSON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  Tsunami Waves in Thailand

  This photo, taken Dec. 26, 2004, shows people fleeing as a tsunami wave comes crashing ashore at Koh Raya, part of Thailand's territory in the Andaman islands. The photographer who took this picture escaped without injury, but retreated at the first wave and watched as a second wave tore apart the wooden buildings, with a third and largest wave coming forward and "ripping apart the cement buildings like they were made of balsa wood."

  IMAGE: JOHN RUSSEL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  Puyehue Volcano Erupts in Chile

  A cloud of ash billowing from Puyehue volcano near Osorno in southern Chile on June 5, 2011. Puyehue volcano erupted for the first time in a half-century on June 4, 2011, producing a column of gas 6 miles high. Image via CLAUDIO SANTANA/AFP/Getty Images

  IMAGE: CLAUDIA SANTANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  Red Crabs in San Diego

  Children look at the thousands of pelagic red crabs that washed ashore in San Diego on May 7, 2002. The phenomenon was a signal of a brewing El Nino event. The crabs, also known as tuna crabs, normally live off Baja California, Mexico, but they rode ocean currents as warm waters from the tropical Pacific migrated farther north than usual in a growing El Nino event.

  IMAGE: DAVID MCNEW/GETTY IMAGES

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  Tsunami Flood Waters in Japan

  This picture, taken by Sendai city official Hiroshi Kawahara on March 11, 2011 and released through Jiji Press on March 25, 2011, shows muddy tsunami water swallowing vehicles and houses at a bridge in Sendai city in Miyagi prefecture. Image via HIROSHI KAWAHARA/AFP/Getty Images

  IMAGE: HIROSHI KAWAHARA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  Tavurvur Volcano in Papua New Guinea

  Evacuated Matapit Islanders watch Tavurvur volcano erupt, sending ash and rocks over the already devastated city of Rabaul on New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea on Oct. 7, 2006.Image via BRUCE ALEXANDER/AFP/Getty Images

  IMAGE: BRUCE ALEXANDER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  Japanese Monkeys After Snow

  Japanese macaque monkeys relax in the hot springs at Jigokudani-Onsen (Hell Valley) on Dec. 27, 2005 after record snowfall hit Jigokudani, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

  IMAGE: KOICHI KAMOSHIDA/GETTY IMAGES

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  Rainbow Over San Francisco

  Rainbow stretches across AT&T Park during the first inning between the San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sept. 5, 2012 in San Francisco.

  IMAGE: JASON O. WATSON/GETTY IMAGES

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  Rare Cloudless Alaska

  The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite acquired this rare, nearly cloud-free view of Alaska on June 17, 2013. Under normal conditions, this area of the state is known for being the cloudiest region of the United States.

Blood clots could be sucked out of the brain by a robotic device!!!

Intracerebral hemorrhaging is what occurs when a blood vessel in the brain bursts, and the blood which subsequently leaks out of that vessel forms a clot that places pressure on the surrounding brain tissue. It’s not that uncommon of an occurrence, it’s difficult to treat, and is fatal in about 40 percent of cases. Help may be on the way, however. A team from Nashville’s Vanderbilt University has created a robotic device that is designed to remove those clots, in a safe and minimally-invasive fashion.

As things currently stand, surgery is a risky approach to removing the clots. An access hole has to be drilled in the skull, and unless the clot is right on the outside of the brain, healthy brain tissue must be disturbed and damaged in order to reach it. The amount of damage caused by the surgery may even outweigh the benefits of removing the clot, which is why physicians often instead choose to administer anti-inflammatory drugs and hope for the best.

That’s where the active cannula comes in.

Designed by a team of physicians and engineers led by Professors Robert J. Webster III and Kyle Weaver, the business end of the device consists of a tube-within-a tube. The straight outer tube is less than one-twentieth of an inch in diameter, and is inserted through a similarly-small hole made in the skull, adjacent to the clot.

Using a CT scan for reference, the cannula’s robotic control unit carefully pushes that very thin tube into the brain, until its tip has entered the clot. At that point, the curved tip of the needle-like inner tube emerges from within the outer one – the other end of the inner tube is attached to an external suction pump. By selectively extending, withdrawing and rotating the inner tube, the control unit is then able to suck the clot out from the inside.

In lab tests, the system was able to remove up to 92 percent of a simulated blood clot.

The researchers are now working on adding ultrasound imaging to the active cannula along with a computer model of the way in which brain tissue deforms around a clot, in order to ensure that the device is able to safely remove as much of the clot as possible.

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