Nov 14 2009 The Million Dollar Man With The Bionic Ass

Ged Gavin, 55, has a bionic ass and doesn't care who knows. Which is good because I definitely just texted everyone in my phone. And by texted I mean sexted. All the kids are doing it. What? Yes I'd jump off a bridge!

Mr Galvin suffered massive internal injuries and had to be fitted with a colostomy bag until surgeons at the Royal London Hospital could perform the complex operation to rebuild his bottom.

The medical team took a muscle from above his knee, wrapped it around his sphincter, and then attached electrodes to the nerves.

These are now operated by a palm-sized remote control that he carries in his pocket.

"They call me the man with the bionic bottom, but that doesn't bother me. My gratitude to the surgeons is endless because what they have done is a miracle."

Colostomy bag or a bionic ass, that's a tough call. I'd probably opt for a bullet in my head. Kidding, suicide is never the answer. Unless you're my ex-wife, in which case it totally is.

Man uses remote to control his 'bionic bottom' [telegraph]

Thanks to Ross, who uses a remote control to chew but is starving because he lost the thing in a couch.

Nov 11 2009 Hooray?: Auto-Tinting Contacts Coming Soon

You know those eyeglasses that automatically darken whenever you go outside? I know, they remind me of pederasts too for some reason (but they look great on you, really). Now scientists are working on transferring the technology to contact lenses.

Traditionally, these light-to-dark lenses have been constructed by coating a normal lens with a photochromic dye. When UV light hits the dye, the individual molecules expand, darkening the lens and absorbing light. Coating contacts, however, doesn't work so well.

So researchers in Singapore have laced contacts with a matrix on nano tunnels filled with these photochromic dyes. Not only has the team been successful in producing transition contacts; these contacts darken in the presence of UV light faster than standard lenses (just 10 to 20 seconds).

Researchers are now working on isolating the photochromic material to just corneal region of your eye, granting you all of the UV filtering without turning your entire iris black.

Yeah, but do they allow you see through a woman's blouse? And, more importantly, can you believe I just said blouse? I don't even know what that is!

I Wear My Suncontacts at Night [gizmodo]

Thanks to twellve, who wears Transition glasses at night so she can, so she can, watch you live and offer you candy.

Nov 3 2009 Giant Crack In Africa Could Be Future Ocean

Because I love news heralding the end of the world as much as you do, I just read a large crack has recently formed in Ethiopia and may house a future ocean after the apocalypse of 2012.

A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.

The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not been well studied.

A new study involving an international team of scientists and reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the processes creating the rift are nearly identical to what goes on at the bottom of oceans, further indication a sea is in the region's future.

Note: That's not an actual photo of the crack there, that's just a picture I ripped off the internet. However, I will use this time to propose that the Grand Canyon will also house a future ocean. I called it first! Unless it doesn't happen, in which case it was your idea. Idiot.

Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean [yahoonews]

Thanks to Josh, who's smart enough to know the oceans were created when God cried after realizing just how beautiful he'd made me.

Nov 3 2009 I'd Rock It: 'I Be Au Sm' Geek Shirts For Sale

This is a Threadless shirt titled 'I Be Au Sm' that was designed by Lawrence Villanueva. If you look carefully and are super observant it spells 'GEEK' whether you read top to bottom or left to right, but NOT right to left. Then it spells 'EGKE' or 'EKGE', neither of which is an SAT word, SO WHO CARES? $18 scores you the shirt and some geeky pride. And speaking of prides: RAWR! rawr! RAWR! RAWR! Get it? Lions, silly!

Product Site

Thanks to The Phat Fat Man, who is awesomely robust.

Oct 27 2009 Another Auto-Tuned Science-y Song, Now With More Bill Nye The Science Guy!

This is the second song/video in the Symphony of Science series, a project designed by John Boswell to spit scientific knowledge in an auto-tuned musical format. The first chart topper was 'A Glorious Dawn' with Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. Now Carl is back with backup singers Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Feynman and Bill Nye, and let me tell you -- these beats are FREEEEEESH.

"We Are All Connected" was made from sampling Carl Sagan's Cosmos, The History Channel's Universe series, Richard Feynman's 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson's cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye's Eyes of Nye Series, plus added visuals from The Elegant Universe (NOVA), Stephen Hawking's Universe, Cosmos, the Powers of 10, and more. It is a tribute to great minds of science, intended to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through the medium of music.

Again, another job well done. Really made me want to blast off in my rocketship and crash into a planet. And by that I mean drop a bunch of acid and listen to these guys talk about outerspace while I roll around on the carpet.

The Symphony of Science

Thanks to Lookaze, Austin, Marc, crispy85, eelee and meeotch, who travel across the country singing to children about possible careers in science but mostly just getting high in the tour bus. Need groupies?

Oct 23 2009 Lies!: Germans Have Broken Speed Of Light

Two German scientists claim to have broken the speed of light. They are liars and should lose their science licenses. What do you mean you don't need a license to practice science? WELL YOU SHOULD!

According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second.

However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.

The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.

The scientists were investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.

Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."

Yeah, no. Is the universe still here? Then these two crackpots didn't shoot shit faster than the speed of light. And speaking of shooting shit faster than the speed of light: the new Black Jack taco from Taco Bell. Plumber!!

'We have broken speed of light' [telegraph]

Thanks to Allegro, who once ran out for beer and returned before he even left (got hit be a street sweeper and passed out in a ditch for a whole day).

Oct 23 2009 CHOO CHOO!: A Little Superconductor Train

This is some French guy making a little superconductor train out of a bunch of magnets and a cup of magic potion. I have no idea what's in the magic potion but that won't stop me from chugging a whole chalice in the hopes of floating. Plus, it even works upside down which is super cool because I've always wanted to take a nap on the ceiling. I will drool on you!

Youtube

Thanks to Rich the destroyer, who destroys because he's Rich the destroyer damnit, you know who he is!

Oct 15 2009 Uh-Oh: Chinese Scientists Create Black Hole

Two scientists in China have developed an electromagnetic black hole capable of sucking in and trapping microwaves (not my Kid's Cuisine!). Next stop: trapping visible light.

The device, which works at microwave frequencies, may soon be extended to trap visible light, leading to an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity.

A theoretical design for a table-top black hole to trap light was proposed in a paper published earlier this year by Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Their idea was to mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards.

Now Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng at the Southeast University in Nanjing, China, have turned Narimanov and Kildishev's theory into practice, and built a "black hole" for microwave frequencies. It is made of 60 annular strips of so-called "meta-materials", which have previously been used to make invisibility cloaks.

You can hit the link to read how the black hole actually works, but that's not what's important. What's important is that it DOES work, and we're all doomed. And here I thought my stomach was the only black hole on earth. Don't believe me? Somebody toss a cheeseburger in the air. Did you see that? Works for hot dogs too. Haha, nice try buddy -- you keep those pants zipped.

First black hole for light created on Earth [newscientist]

Thanks to Equalizer and Chris, who have both lost spaceships to black holes before.

Oct 6 2009 I Couldn't Make This Up: New 'Horny Ballerina' Species Of Tyrannosaurus Discovered

That's right folks, scientists have discovered a new species of tyrannosaurus, completely different than the much larger (and arguably sexier) t-rex everyone is accustomed to. But you've got to admit, this little bugger is cute as a button.

The new, more graceful tyrannosaur is named Alioramus altai.

A. altai apparently has a similar skeleton to larger Tyrannosaur-type dinos such as Tarbosaurus, Alioramus, Gorgosaurus etc. But among these burly heavyweights, A. altai was surely the butt of cruel locker-room bullying and dino towel-snapping, weighing in at a puny 800 pounds or so - half the weight of the regular tyrannosaurs. The ballerina-esque, "gracile" A. altai also differed from the big boys in having horns and an elongated snout.

The new dino was slim, light on its feet, horny and partial to meat

HIYO -- just like every ballerina I've ever known! Except the lesbians (no meat).

Horny new 'ballerina' Tyrannosaur was light on its feet [theregister]

Thanks to Barry and Kelly, who have danced with the dinosaurs in the pale moonlight and lived to tell about it.

Oct 2 2009 Serious Eye Candy: Amazing Photograph Of The World's Tallest Rocket Blasting Off

This is a photo of the world's tallest rocket blasting off for outerspace without me. Damnit, I packed a sack lunch and everything! HOLLER AT YOUR BOY, NASA. Come on -- I'll bring you back an alien corpse!

You're looking at the 253.2-foot Delta 4-Heavy lifting off from launch complex 37B at Cape Canaveral, and yes, that's actually a photograph. Good thing the camera was remotely triggered by photographer Ben Cooper, who used sound activation to snap this shot while he was safely ensconced 3 miles away.

We feel sorry for that camera, though, whose lens was destroyed. The good news is, the camera itself somehow survived this hellish inferno as the world's tallest unmanned rocket roared away from its launchpad.

Impressive, huh? We've certainly come a long way since people thought the world was round, am I right? IT'S A D-20 YOU IDIOTS. God loves D&D! Now, gimme a roll for drunkenness, big guy. 19! BLAAAAAAAHH!!

World's tallest rocket roars away, captured in spectacular photo [dvice]

Oct 2 2009 One Step Closer To Evolutionary 'Missing Link'

Scientists believe they're one step closer to human evolution's "missing link" with the discovery of new skeletal remains in Ethiopia.

Humanity has a new older sister. A fossilized skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus or "Ardi" predates Lucy by over a million years. The discovery has led to new insights about human evolution, suggesting previously unknown relationships to our chimpanzee brethren.

The paleobiologists studying Ardi identify hers as an "intermediate" form, one that is bipedal, but at the same time capable of walking on all forms and traveling through trees. Still, although she represents a point past hominids' evolutionary break with gorillas and chimpanzees, she is very different from modern apes. For example, Ardi's had flat hands and feet and flexible wrists, and engaged in a form of locomotion called palmigrady, which is a trait of ancient apes and unlike gorillas and chimpanzees, which are stiff-wristed knuckle-walkers. This suggests that gorilla and chimp ancestors developed their knuckle-walking long after their evolutionary break with hominids.

Interesting. And by interesting I mean Ardi looks like your mom but with nicer tits. AND trim.

New Fossil Discovery is the Closest We've Come to the Missing Link [io9]

Thanks to Julian, who would hit anything with opposable thumbs.

Oct 1 2009 Huge Cache Of Dinosaurs Eggs Found In India

In promising dinosaur-cloning news, hundreds of football-sized Sauropod eggs have been uncovered in India. Secretary, book me a flight! Oh, wait, they're all infertile. Secretary, cancel that flight and order me a pizza!

"The important finding is that these eggs have been found in different layers that means the dinosaurs came to the place over and over year after year," he said.

"The second important thing is that we have got volcanic ash deposits on the eggs which suggests that volcanic activity could have caused their extinction.

"The other thing we have found is that all these eggs are unhatched and infertile. So what made the eggs infertile? We need to carry out further studies to learn more from the findings."

Dr Ramkumar and his team have called on the central and state governments to protect what they are calling a "Jurassic treasure trove".

Hell yes, Jurassic treasure trove. That's better than pirate gold in my book. And my book is awesome and has COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS OF ME BONING DINOSAURS (tasteful ones). Just saying, go ahead and send the Caldecott to my parent's house.

Dinosaur eggs are found in India [bbcnews]

Thanks to Spikey DaPikey and Awesome Saucer, who have a time machine and may or may not be responsible for some of those eggs (read: the eggs are infertile so I suspect they are).

Sep 22 2009 Mad Scientist: We'll All Be Immortal Cyborgs In 20 Years. GW: In 19 Years I'm Offing Myself

Some crazy-ass jive talking nutjob (61-year old scientist, Ray Kurzweil) is convinced we'll have the technological capabilities and biological know-how to all be loveless immortal cyborgs within 20 years time. Uh-oh.

He says theoretically, at the rate our understanding is increasing, nanotechnologies capable of replacing many of our vital organs could be available in 20 years time.

Mr Kurzweil calls his theory the Law of Accelerating Returns. Writing in The Sun, Mr Kurzweil said: "I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies' stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, ageing. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever.

"If we want to go into virtual-reality mode, nanobots will shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go. Virtual sex will become commonplace. And in our daily lives, hologram like figures will pop in our brain to explain what is happening.

First of all, The Sun is not an accredited scientific journal. And secondly, I prefer real sex to virtual reality any day. Trust me, it's not all that (I once tried making out with the television but she only shocked my tongue).

Immortality only 20 years away says scientist [telegraph]

Thanks to greenman and mystrb, who are already gonna live forever through their written words (in bathroom stalls).

Sep 9 2009 Highly Questionable Popular Science Ad

This is a highly questionable 30-second commercial for a new show on the Science Channel called 'Future Of...'. Basically the show explores in which ways robots are gonna bend us over and have their cold, metallic way with humanity. Now I don't want to ruin the ad for you, so go ahead and watch it.

Did you see that? THE DUDE BROUGHT FLOWERS TO A ROBOT WOMAN! WTF IS UP WITH THAT?! I don't care how far in the future, I could never love another robot. You broke my heart Teddy Ruxpin!

Youtube

Thanks to Alaina, who's smart enough to know the future i snow. Yes, the future i snow. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS BUT IT'S THE TRUTH!

Sep 3 2009 Scientists: "All Humans Are Mutants"

Scientists are claiming that each human has between 100 and 200 genetic mutations in their DNA. Me? I have two fingers....I have four fingers.

Joseph Nadeau, from the Case Western Reserve University in the US, who was not involved in this study said: "New mutations are the source of inherited variation, some of which can lead to disease and dysfunction, and some of which determine the nature and pace of evolutionary change.

"These are exciting times," he added.

"We are finally obtaining good reliable estimates of genetic features that are urgently needed to understand who we are genetically."

Listen: you can go right on being a freak all you want, but I ain't no damn mutant. I have never even met Professor X! Who, that old guy? The bald one in the wheelchair? Nobody.

We're all mutants, say scientists [bbcnews]

Thanks to Totex and Slava, who only got the incredibly good looking mutations. Lucky.

Aug 26 2009 I Love Science: Scientist Plan to 'Reverse-Engineer' Dinosaurs From Modern Chickens

In the best news I've heard in a while, a scientist at McGill University in Montreal (I love you, Canada) is attempting to reverse engineer a dinosaur from a chicken "by altering chicken genes known to have evolved since the Cretaceous."

Needless to say, there are many problems with the very concept of making a dinosaur out of a chicken. For one, dinosaurs, as a group, are defined by only a few characteristics: a hole in their hip socket, some limb bone flanges, and other minor anatomical features. Changing chicken DNA won't produce those traits, because chickens already have them. A chicken, like all birds, is already a dinosaur. Getting rid of its feathers or giving it teeth won't make it more of a dinosaur than it already is.

What in the -- chickens ARE dinosaurs? To the colonel's farm, STAT -- I'm gonna roll myself in corn and die happy!

Scientist Vows To Reverse-Engineer Dinosaur From Chicken [popsci]

Thanks to James, Alexander the Viking, Mr. Robbot, Adam, Dustin, Erik, Myriapode, Tigerh8r, Pepe la PEWPEW, Dominik and Caroline, who will never look at a drumstick the same.

Aug 24 2009 Do Want: This Human Ingredients T-Shirt

This is $20 t-shirt listing the ingredients of human bodies in percentage order from largest to smallest. Did you know we're 0.25% sulfur? Because maybe that's why you smell so bad. Or maybe it's just your upper lip! BUUUUUUUURN. Your momma wears army boots and dresses you funny!

Product Site

Thanks to Towhee Monster, who is actually 100% awesome.

Aug 23 2009 It Buuuuuurns!: Scientists Invent Mug That Keeps Beverages At Perfect Temperature

Physicists have invented a coffee mug to keep your beverage at the ideal temperature for 30 minutes. What is the ideal temperature? Allegedly 58 degrees Celsius (136.4 degrees Fahrenheit). I beg to differ.

The key for this magic trick is physics and PCM--phase change material--an extraordinary substance used in construction and winter clothing. PCM is capable of storing and releasing heat or cold.

The perfect mug follows the same principle: It is made of hollow ceramics. Inside there's an aluminum structure--as you can see in the image above--which gets filled with PCM. When you pour in your hot coffee, the heat gets absorbed reaching your personal optimum level based on the amount of PCM in the cup's interior. According to Klaus Sedlbauer, head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, you can customize this on manufacturing.

You want to know the ideal temperature of my beverage? It's called ICE COLD BEER. But I will drink it hot if I have to. Last summer I drank a case of beer that had been in the trunk of my car for a week. I peed fire, true story.

Physicists Create Perfect Coffee Mug That Keeps Perfect Temperature [gizmodo]

Aug 18 2009 I See You, Little Stuff!: A USB Microscope

Hey guys I'm getting kicked out my hotel (which is fine because it's a shithole and caught fire yesterday) so I have to relocate. I'll be back this afternoon with more posts though, I promise. In the meantime, here's a $130 USB powered microscope.

This week e-Supply Japan announced the EEA-MAN1011, an digital USB microscope to use with a PC. It's powered by a 2Mpix censor manufactured in by Sanyo Japan with a 5x to 150x zoom.

Oh man, I want one. Remember the first time you ever looked at something under a microscope? What was it? Mine was a scab. And no, I didn't eat it afterwards. It's not eating if you swallow something whole!

e-Supply Japan's New USB Microscope [akihabaranews]

Thanks to naas, who once looked at a fingernail clipping under a microscope and never bit his nails again.

Aug 13 2009 Lookin' Sharp: Periodic Sweater Of Elements

This is a periodic sweater of elements made by knitter apinnick. It looks sharp and I would wear it EVEN WHEN IT'S NOT CHRISTMAS. The table continues around the sweater to the back, and the sleeves contain the names of different fungi (right sleeve) and bacteria (left sleeve). Because, as we all know, bacteria and fungi like to party with the elements. It's true, one time -- and you've got to promise you won't tell anybody I told you this -- I saw Penicillium touching Argon's butt at a school dance. THEY WERE BEING SO FREAKY!

Hit the jump for several more shots of the awesomeness.

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