Nov 11 2009 That....Sounds Dangerous -- I Must Try It!

This is a 9-second video of an evil mad scientist pouring liquid nitrogen in his mouth and blowing out vapor. Why? Because he's mad, yo! Even worse than that tea-loving mother with the big hat.

Though it may look like this scientist is actually drinking the liquid nitrogen, he says that with a bit of practice, "it is easy not to swallow liquid nitrogen and make cool condensed vapor come out of the nostrils."

I would have drank it. I would have drank it and asked for another one. Bartender, another cold one. No, another REAAALLY cold one. You catch my drift? I'm talking about liquid nitrogen. And I want two of those little umbrellas and a plastic cutlass with cherries AND YOU BETTER NOT CHARGE ME FOR THEM. Now, get ready to call the paramedics.

How Scientists Chill Out [techeblog]

Thanks to naas, who once drank liquid gasoline trying to siphon my gas tank. That's what you get!

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 20 2009 Scientists Want to Develop Robotic Cheetah To Chase You Down, Dine On Your Carcass

Because life is progressively becoming a series of nightmares, scientists want to develop a robot that mimics the movement of a cheetah so they can chase us down and maul us to death. Why did I even get out of bed this morning? Oh, right. Well why did I even wake up this morning?

Professor Sangbae Kim designer of the Stickybot and a Robotic designer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Is trying to understand how he can replicate natural animal mechanisms by creating a robot inspired by the cheetah.

The idea is to build a prototype robot from a construction of lightweight carbon-fiber-foam that will then be able to match the cheetah's speed of 70 miles per hour.

Over the next 18 months, Kim and four other MIT graduate students are going to start constructing the prototypes. Starting with a computer model of the robotic cheetah to establish the optimal limb length, weight, gait and torque of the hip and knee joints.

It's an ambitious project. Current wheeled robots are efficient, but can be slow in rough terrains. For instance, iRobot's PackBot, which is used by the U.S. military, can only travel at speeds of up to 5.8 miles per hour.

I'm sure this seemed like a good idea to somebody at some point, but it's not. Like I don't have enough to worry about without a 70 MPH cheetah-bot running around. Also, like four children. And you wonder why daddy drinks in bed all day!

Cheetah Inspired Robot [geekygadgets]

Thanks to Excaliber, who I will use to slice through these bastards like room temperature butter.

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 5 2009 For The Apocalypse: Bra Turns To Gas Masks

Doctor Elena Bodner won this year's Ig Noble Prize for Public Health with a bra designed to turn into two functional gas masks should the need arise (and why wouldn't it?).

The aim of the awards is to honour achievements that "first make people laugh and then make them think".

The Ig Nobel Prizes were presented to the winners by genuine Nobel laureates.

Past winners also returned to take part in the celebrations. They included Kees Moeliker, the discoverer of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck, and Dr Francis Fesmire, who devised the digital rectal massage as cure for intractable hiccups.

Wow, what an elite group. You've got to admit though, a gas mask bra is pretty clever. Granted, not as clever as the gas mask underwear I just invented, but you act like you've never seen a guy with worn panties on his face before. THIS IS NORMAL IN JAPAN!

Hit the jump for the worthwhile complete list of winners.

Continue Reading " For The Apocalypse: Bra Turns To Gas Masks "

Oct 2 2009 Amazing Carl Sagan/Stephen Hawking Song

This is a bunch of scenes from Carl Sagan's Cosmos series (miss you, Carl!) remixed to make a song. It is awesome. Plus, Stephen Hawking laid down some phat vocals, so it's double sweet. Like eating a scoop of birthday cake ice cream and a scoop of birthday cake batter ice cream AT THE SAME TIME. Except not that good because there's nothing better than that.

Youtube (more info, lyrics and a link to downloads available there)

Thanks to Paul, who has traveled to the far ends of the cosmos and verified that Geekologie is, in fact, the best website in the universe. Also, the man's seen alien snatch.

Sep 27 2009 Scientists To Pull Pictures From Your Brain

I know for a fact the government can pull images from a person's brain because they've been probing around in my dome for years, messing with the delicate ecosystem up there. And one time when I was being interrogated I saw a picture of a dinosaur in an agent's file folder, SO I KNOW. Anyway, apparently they've decided to make the technology public knowledge.

Having modeled how images are represented in the brain, the researchers translated recorded patterns of neural activity into pictures of what test subjects had seen.

To construct their model, the researchers used an fMRI machine, which measures blood flow through the brain, to track neural activity in three people as they looked at pictures of everyday settings and objects.

As in the earlier study, they looked at parts of the brain linked to the shape of objects. Unlike before, they looked at regions whose activity correlates with general classifications, such as "buildings" or "small groups of people."

Once the model was calibrated, the test subjects looked at another set of pictures. After interpreting the resulting neural patterns, the researchers' program plucked corresponding pictures from a database of 6 million images.

Soon, everyone will have a photo printer in the back of their head to print off worthwhile images they've seen. Me? I already have one. Don't believe me -- check this stack of pictures. What? Don't act like you've never seen a dinosaur penis before!

Brain Scans Reveal What You've Seen [wired]

Thanks to Anit, who can read minds like comic books: with incredible difficulty.

Sep 15 2009 I Smell Hoverboards!: Scientists Successfully Float Mice Using Magnetic Fields

That's right folks, scientists have successfully hovered mice using nothing but magnetic fields. You read correctly: no black magic this time! (I'm still skeptical)

Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside warm enough at room temperature and large enough at 2.6 inches wide (6.6 cm) for tiny creatures to float comfortably in during experiments.

The researchers first levitated a young mouse, just three-week-old and weighing 10 grams. It appeared agitated and disoriented, seemingly trying to hold on to something.

"It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented," said researcher Yuanming Liu, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating.

I want to float! Remember that time in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Charlie and his alcoholic grandfather drank the Lifting Fizzy Drink and then floated around the bubble room? Yeah, I did that one time when I was tripping. It was awesome. Well, until I swallowed a bubble and got the hiccups. I was hiccuping colors!

Mice Levitated in Lab [yahoonews]

Thanks to Totex, who once made his assistant hover before somebody in the audience yelled, "I can see the wires!" and ruined the illusion.

Aug 20 2009 Wonderful News: Robots Learn How To Lie

In an experiment that shouldn't surprise anybody with half a brain that sleeps with a giant robot-burning laser under their pillow, scientists have shown that robots have the ability to evolve and lie. And this is to one another -- imagine what they'd tell a human! Also, this quote is kind of long, but it's interesting and important to read if you want to understand the experiment. However, if you just want to type FIRST! in the comments and not learn anything, you should probably skip it (and then off a building). Did I say skip? I meant dive. Just kidding, I don't care.

In an experiment run at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, Switzerland*, robots that were designed to cooperate in searching out a beneficial resource and avoiding a poisonous one learned to lie to each other in an attempt to hoard the resource.

The experiment involved 1,000 robots divided into 10 different groups. Each robot had a sensor, a blue light, and its own 264-bit binary code "genome" that governed how it reacted to different stimuli. The first generation robots were programmed to turn the light on when they found the good resource, helping the other robots in the group find it.

The robots got higher marks for finding and sitting on the good resource, and negative points for hanging around the poisoned resource. The 200 highest-scoring genomes were then randomly "mated" and mutated to produce a new generation of programming. Within nine generations, the robots became excellent at finding the positive resource, and communicating with each other to direct other robots to the good resource.

However, there was a catch. A limited amount of access to the good resource meant that not every robot could benefit when it was found, and overcrowding could drive away the robot that originally found it.

After 500 generations, 60 percent of the robots had evolved to keep their light off when they found the good resource, hogging it all for themselves. Even more telling, a third of the robots evolved to actually look for the liars by developing an aversion to the light; the exact opposite of their original programming!

Notice how I bolded that last line? Reread it. Anybody else see something inherently wrong with that? Now, if you will recall the first law of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. See where I'm going with this? OUTERSPACE BITCHES, I'M NOT WAITING AROUND FOR THIS SHIT TO GO DOWN.

Evolving Robots Learn To Lie To Each Other [popsci]

Thanks to Sarah, biggity2bit, greg, Phil, John, Pepper, Sven, Shawn, Rossco, Terrance, timpeva, ffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, SharaSue, Sn0zz, SeanJon, billcollider, Tyrogyro and yayinternets, who only lie about their age and marital status.

Aug 10 2009 Holodeck Coming Soon: Touchable Hologram

That's right folks, a fully functional Holodeck may be just around the corner. Using a combination of hologram and ultrasound technologies, a group of Japanese scientists have created a touchable, feelable 3-D image. Imagine the possibilities! I'm looking at you, Princess Leia.

Using ultrasonic waves to provide the resistance and tactile presence, the hologram simulates the sensation of rain drops or a small ball, all without interfering with the projected 3-D image. A couple of Wiimotes provide the tracking, and the programing provides the fun.

That's actually pretty freaking awesome. And I, for one, can't wait to see the long term, practical applications of this new technology (read: porn and video games).

Tokyo Scientists Create Touchable Hologram [popsci]

Thanks to Mih0, Will, eazie, Pete, Brocknoviatch and Daryl, who all prefer real life touching. Good, now rub my back.

Jul 26 2009 Scientists Fear Robots Are Getting Too Smart

How would you like to wake up to this guy staring at you? You wouldn't, would you? Okay, how about the guy with the phone? I give him a maybe. Anyway, some scientists (the smart ones) fear that robot intelligence is going too far and we must do something to stop them before they stop (read: kill) us.

Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society's workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.

[They] generally discounted the possibility of highly centralized superintelligences and the idea that intelligence might spring spontaneously from the Internet. But they agreed that robots that can kill autonomously are either already here or will be soon.

That's right, AUTONOMOUS KILLER ROBOTS. You remember Twiki from Buck Rogers? He was one. Bidi-bidi-bidi!

Thanks to joe, Red, Daniel, Carmen, jabberw0ck, Rogue Cheddar, Retroprofile, Sarah, Princess Padme's Masturbation Fantasy and Patrick, who all help me fight the good fight. Fight first, pizza party second.

Jul 16 2009 The World's Most Perfectly Spherical Balls

Meteorologists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization have created the world's most perfectly spherical balls out of silicon. Next, breasts.

This is one of the two most perfect spheres ever. Exactly one kilogram--Imperial units be damned forever--smooth to the nearest 0.0000000003 meter (1.18110236 × 10-8 inches), and round to within 0.00000005 meters (1.96850394 × 10-6 inches).

Nice try guys, but I've been told more than once that I, in fact, have the nicest set in the galaxy. Back me up in the comments, ladies.*

*Any unflattering comments will be deleted. I'm looking at you, Carol. And you, Josh.

Hit the jump for one more shot.

Continue Reading " The World's Most Perfectly Spherical Balls "

Jul 10 2009 Robot Teaches Itself To Smile, Next: Targeting

The fools at the University of California, San Diego have created a robot that can learn new facial expressions on it's own. Next, its gonna learn how to drive itself to the shooting range.

To begin teaching the robot, the researchers stuck Einstein in front of a mirror and instructed the robot to "body babble" by contorting its face into random positions. A video camera connected to facial recognition software gave the robot feedback: When it made a movement that resembled a "real" expression, it received a reward signal.

"It's an iterative process," said facial recognition expert Marian Bartlett, a co-author of the study. "It starts out completely random and then gets feedback. Next time the robot picks an expression, there's a bias towards putting the motors in the right configuration."

Now I'm no terrorist, BUT IF I WAS, Machine Perception Laboratory, just sayin'.

Robot Teaches Itself to Smile [wired]

Thanks to Dirk, Dennie and RealLifeFup, who asked it to smile for the camera and then shot it because it wasn't really a camera, it was a gun.

Jun 26 2009 It Buuuuuurns!: India To Make Chili Grenades

India's Defense Research and Development Organization has plans to start manufacturing hot chili grenades. Hot chili grenades are exactly what they sound like: hot. chili. grenades.

Indian defence scientists are planning to put one of the world's hottest chilli powders into hand grenades.

They say the devices will be used to control rioters and in counter-insurgency operations.

The chilli, known as Bhut Jolokia, is said to be 1,000 times hotter than commonly used kitchen chilli.

Wow, this might very well be the second most delicious grenade I've ever heard of. But NOTHING tops a good tear-gas grenade. I eat sadness!

India plans hot chilli grenades [bbcnews]

Thanks to i like it spicy, whose urine can melt concrete.

May 28 2009 Okay?: Another Day, Another Glowing Animal

Well scientists have already created glowing dogs and cats, so it was only a matter of time before somebody did a monkey. Nice, guy, thanks for the AIDS.

Though primates that make a glowing protein have been created before, these are the first to keep the change in their bloodlines.

Although the work demonstrates the principle that a gene can be introduced into a primate bloodline, study co-author Hideyuki Okano of the Keio University School of Medicine said it may not be suitable for studying all diseases.

That limitation is about 10,000 bases, or letters, of the genetic code. That upper bound will constrain the diseases that can be studied.

Great, so we've got more glowing animals with the promise of help curing disease. Well hurry up and cure one already! I'm starting to think these "scientists" are just making glowing pets to bring home to their daughters. Which, I think we can all agree, is despicable (glowing dinosaur, pronto). You can't hide from me, little Anchisaur!

Glowing monkeys 'to aid research' [bbcnews]

Thanks to Matt, who, LOOK BEHIND YOU - A THREE HEADED MONKEY! (swish)

May 6 2009 Just What We Need: Robots On Facebook

That's right folks, Facebook, long considered one of humanity's last strongholds, is being breached by robots. Warning: under no circumstances should you accept a robot's friend request. And don't let them fool you with Superpokes and Virtual Drinks, THEY SHOULD BE CONSIDERED METALIZED AND DANGEROUS.

Researchers are giving a robot its own Facebook profile page to help foster meaningful relationships with people. The page will be populated with interactions the robot has with people as well as photos of the time it spends in human company.

Its creators hope that embedding it in a social web will give rise to a sustainable friendship can grow up between man and machine.

Umm, how about NO THANKS. Now how in the hell are we supposed to tell friend from robotic foe? I swear, if I catch that robobastard trying to infiltrate the Geekologie Fan page, it is GAME OVER AND LIGHTS OUT. Then lights back on while I find my stuffed dinosaur. THEN LIGHTS OUT AGAIN AND A BUNCH OF GROANING AND RAWR!

Robot to create Facebook profile [bbcnews]

Thanks to ffffffffffffffffff, Aaron, Bilal, Gareth, Kim and Dylan "Free Sex!", who should totally take the 'What Disney Princess Are You' quiz that I just did. I'm Belle!

May 1 2009 Sure, Why Not?: Growing Plants On The Moon

Paragon Space Development Corporation, a NASA subcontractor, has decided to take a stab at growing plants in a specially designed greenhouse on the moon. THE MOON! The attempt will take place in 2012, so we may or may not get to see if it works before the world ends.

In order to successfully grow a plant on the moon, Paragon has developed a very specialized greenhouse that can safely contain a plant and provide it with all elements it needs to survive. The greenhouse will need to protect the plant from the sun's intense rays while providing it with enough water, balanced soil, and carbon dioxide while removing its waste oxygen.

Paragon has chosen a species within Brassica (the mustard family), due to their quick growth and the abundance of knowledge about the plant. A typical Brassica needs 14 days of light in order to grow, flower and then set seed. A lunar day is 14 Earth days long, so if the landing is timed perfectly, it will allow just enough time for the plant to grow to maturity and possibly re-seed.

Nice, but you really think anyone cares about growing mustard on the moon? No, I'm convinced there's a much more diabolical motive behind this experiment. Namely, government space weed.

First Gardens on the Moon by 2012! [inhabitat]

Thanks to Chuck Nunchuck and toast king, who once got high on Mars and thought they saw an alien. It was a rock.

Apr 30 2009 Scientists Create Chemical Gel That Moves On It's Own, Will Power Our Future Overlords

Some foolish Japanese scientists have developed a chemical compound capable of moving on it's own. They're convinced it's the stuff future robots will be made of. I'm convinced I just let one loose in my pants.

A group of Japanese roboticists, led by Shingo Maeda at the Shuji Hashimoto applied physics laboratory at Waseda University, have created a chemical gel capable of independent motion, similar to that of a caterpillar.

Using a process that combines polymers, the material not only moves on its own, but also can change colors and can be used to perform calculations. According to the scientists involved in the project the morphable material could even one day be used as components of a future robot, thus making the notion of the incredibly scary Terminator T-1000 a real possibility.

That's....terrible news. WTF, ROBOTICISTS? Roboticists shouldn't even be a real thing. If I close my eyes and say, "roboticists don't exist" three times they should all disappear, right? Okay, *covering eyes* "roboticists don't exist, roboticists don't exist, roboticists don't exist". There *uncovering eyes* HOLY SHIT -- BLOODY MARY, AAAAAAAAHHH!

Hit the jump for a video of a miniature T-1000 in action.

Continue Reading " Scientists Create Chemical Gel That Moves On It's Own, Will Power Our Future Overlords "

Apr 27 2009 It's Scientific: Bacon Cures Hangovers

In a study that surprises nobody who's woken up still Tyrannosaurus Wrecked from the night before in a puddle of someone else's urine and eaten the breakfast of gods, scientists have discovered bacon really does cure a hangover.

"Bread is high in carbohydrates and bacon is full of protein, which breaks down into amino acids. Your body needs these amino acids, so eating them will make you feel good."

"Bingeing on alcohol depletes neurotransmitters too, but bacon contains a high level of aminos which tops these up, giving you a clearer head."

Researchers also found a complex chemical interaction in the cooking of bacon produces the winning combination of taste and smell which is almost irresistible.

As a matter of fact, I remember reading somewhere in the Bible that the Apostles would all fry camel (a close relative of the pig, don't bother looking this up) after a night of boozing. So, yeah -- bacon: it's what Jesus would do.

Also, that's me in the picture.

Bacon sandwich really does cure a hangover [telegraph]

Thanks to The Baconator, Kevin, Rick, Cam, Duffman, Jonathan and Barry, who know the best way to cure a hangover is to start drinking again.

Apr 25 2009 Red Rover, Red Rover: Glowing Puppies

Created in the same fashion as the glowing kitties we posted way back in December, 2007, scientists have bred transgenic (expressing a gene from another, unrelated organism) puppies that glow red under UV light. I don't want one. Ain't no devil dog livin' in this house!

A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones.

Greg Barsh, a geneticist at Stanford University who studies dogs as models of human disease, says creating a transgenic dog is "an important accomplishment", showing that cloning and transgenesis can be applied to a wide range of mammals.

"I do not know of specific situations where the ability to produce transgenic dogs represents an immediate experimental opportunity," Barsh adds. But transgenic dogs will give researchers another potential tool to understand disease.

Eh, I thought it was so you wouldn't kick your dog on the way to the kitchen for a midnight snack. I don't know about this whole disease bit. Which reminds me: any of you good at identifying rashes? I can send pics.

Hit the jump for what the puppies look like when they're not glowing. Except the middle one, the middle one isn't a glower.

Continue Reading " Red Rover, Red Rover: Glowing Puppies "