Read it.

Throughout the animal kingdom, mothers transfer microbes to their young while giving birth. Different species of tadpoles acquire specific skin bacteria from mother frogs even though they all live in the same pond with the same bacterial background. Emerging chicken eggs get inoculated with microbes from a bacteria-filled pouch near the mother hen’s rectum. And for millennia, mammalian babies have acquired founding populations of microbes by passing through their mothers’ vagina. This microbial handoff is also a critical aspect of infant health in humans. Today it is in peril.

Read it.

Land Rover is showcasing a new concept that would give drivers a better view of the road through augmented reality. The Transparent Bonnet Concept utilizes cameras mounted in the car’s grille to capture a view of the road that’s usually obscured by the hood. This data is then fed to a heads-up display that shows the video in real-time at the bottom of the windscreen, overlaying where a driver sees their car’s bonnet and effectively giving the impression that it — and the engine — are transparent.

Read it.

Google Glass can be used to check emails or search for information on the move. It can also apparently be used to save lives. The Boston Globe reports that Dr. Steven Horng, working at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was wearing Glass last year while working on a man whose brain was bleeding. Dr. Horng knew that the patient was allergic to certain drugs that would arrest the bleeding, but didn’t know which ones. With no time to leave the stricken patient, Horng says he called up the man’s medical records on Google’s wearable device, found the relevant information, and stabilized his condition.

Read it.

“This is a breakthrough,” says Dr. Barth Green, co-founder of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at the University of Miami, who was not involved in the research. “It shows you can have a living spinal cord under the layer of their injury.”

More than 1,700 paralyzed people have inquired about using this technology, which involves surgically implanting a stimulator and giving it directions with an external remote control. The stimulator creates a small, slightly visible bulge in the lower abdomen and is connected to wires that send electrical pulses to the spinal cord.

Read it.

Read it.

Researchers at Stanford have observed that foraging harvester ants act like TCP/IP packets, so much so that they’re calling the ants’ behavior “the anternet”.

Read it.

Four experiments tested the novel hypothesis that ritualistic behavior potentiates and enhances the enjoyment of ensuing consumption—an effect found for chocolates, lemonade, and even carrots. Experiment 1 showed that ritual behaviors compared to a no-ritual condition, made chocolate more flavorful, valuable, and deserving of behavioral savoring. Experiment 2 demonstrated that random gestures do not boost consumption like ritualistic gestures do. It further showed that a delay between a ritual and the opportunity to consume heightens enjoyment, which attests to the idea that ritual behavior stimulates goal-directed action (to consume). Experiment 3 found that performing rituals oneself enhanced consumption more than merely watching someone else perform the same ritual, suggesting that personal involvement is crucial for the benefits of rituals to emerge. Last, Experiment 4 provided direct evidence of the underlying process: Rituals enhance consumption enjoyment due to the greater involvement they prompt in the experience.

Magnetic measuring spoons.

Weatherproof motion sensor light.

iPhone case with folding knife.

Calslock Portable Door Lock.

Read it.

Don’t ever say we don’t have useful stuff here.

Read it.

I bet you didn’t know that.

“We really need to know what happens with live zebras in the field before we can be sure,” she said.

Good advice in any situation.

Read it.

Read it.

A British sniper in Afghanistan managed to kill six Taliban insurgents with just one bullet by hitting the target switch of a suicide bomber, whose device exploded, the Telegraph reports.

The sniper, a lance corporal in the Coldstream Guards, hit his target from 930 yards away. The incident took place in December. The shot prevented a major attack by the Taliban, Lt. Col. Richard Slack, told the Telegraph.

Nulli secundus!

Read it.

We just got some pretty damned tough mice here.

Read it.

Essentially you are buying a set of files – skulls from dogs, dragons, goats, humans, and Alyssa Milano (not really) – and you can print them out without supports, which is a pretty big deal.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Read it.

Analysis of the bodies and of wills registered in London at the time has cast doubt on “facts” that every schoolchild has learned for decades: that the epidemic was caused by a highly contagious strain spread by the fleas on rats.

Now evidence taken from the human remains found in Charterhouse Square, to the north of the City of London, during excavations carried out as part of the construction of the Crossrail train line, have suggested a different cause: only an airborne infection could have spread so fast and killed so quickly.

Read it.

The embryonic stem cells responsible for producing every other type of cell in the human body gained their power from an ancient virus that copied itself into our DNA millions of years ago, according to new research. National Geographic reports that the discovery could lead to more effective stem-cell treatments for diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease, among other ailments.

Soon to be known as ‘the God virus’, I predict.

Read it.

At The Atlantic’s Health Care Forum in Washington on Thursday, health care and business professionals said that there’s an increasing trend in the industry toward cutting insurance companies out of the process entirely, as large, regional hospital systems move into the insurance business.

Read it.

There was a time in the not too distant past when all of our clothes were truly organic, created along a clear path from seed to seam. Nowadays though, our textiles are not so much grown by farmers as they are developed by scientists who continuously search for new ways to make our clothes better, faster, and stronger.

This quest to meld textiles and technology has given us a whole new set of fabrics that continuously push the boundaries on what a garment can achieve, and today these cutting-edge materials have become almost commonplace. Performance wear and sportswear designers now share the common goal of crafting garments that not only stand out, but also out last their competitors, and so with these fabrics moving from REI up to Barneys, we figured we’d give you all a primer on some of the biggest names in high-tech textiles.

Read it.

Takao Hensch, a Harvard professor of cellular biology who is part of the Boston Children’s team, has found that behavioral drugs like donepezil can help return the chemistry of the brain to so-called “critical periods” in its development—the times during early childhood when the brain was rapidly growing. Critical periods help explain why children younger than about 7 can pick up new skills, like language and music, much faster than adults can. This is why you see parents attempting to plant foreign languages in their kids while they’re still in Pampers. It’s much easier than trying to conjugate French verbs for the first time when you’re 30.

Read it.

Over-the-counter liquid bandages are great for sealing up minor cuts and scrapes, but sutures are still required to close most surgical incisions and deeper wounds. A group of scientists at the University of Maryland, however, have devised a way to apply a layer of 370 nanometer-wide biodegradable fibers to close and protect wounds using a standard airbrush machine.

Read it.

Scientists have created the first synthetic chromosome for yeast in a landmark for biological engineering.

Previously synthetic DNA has been designed and made for simpler organisms such as bacteria.

Solar Illuminated Address Mailbox.

Monkii Bars.

Carbon Fiber 3D Printer.

Flying Fire-Breathing Dragon.

Droplet Robotic Sprinkler.

MicrobeScope.

Flask Bracelet.

Fat Trike.

Cat Burger Pillow.

Foodini 3D Food Printer.

Laser-Engraved Rolling Pins.

Fuloon Inflatable Backseat Car Mattress.

Read it.

You won’t see the glory of human achievement if you abide by the World Wide Fund for Nature’s recommendation that you spend an hour in the dark this Saturday night to allegedly “show your commitment to a better future.” Rather than take that anti-technology approach, why not leave the lights on and celebrate human achievement, including a new invention that will help even blind people see?

Read it.

So wash your hands before you use it.

Read it.

There’s a first — not that he insulted his Republican opponent, but that he actually apologized, behavior for which Democrats are not famous.

Read it.

Carbon nanotubes are made of rolled-up, atom-thick sheets of carbon (also known as graphene) and can be used as an additive to boost an object’s strength. They are also conductive, which means they could be used to print items that can conduct electricity. Arevo is also offering carbon fiber-reinforced filament, ultra-tough plastic PEEK and other polymers.

Read it.

Physicists at Ohio State University have successfully sent an electron “down” a wire made of diamond, a first that could mean new methods of transferring data inside computer chips. As you can imagine, these aren’t wires in a traditional sense in that they conduct electricity. Instead, the physicists were able to pass a magnetic spin effect down the wire “like a row of sports spectators doing ‘the wave.’” Spin has long been seen as the solution to passing data via quantum computers and the researchers found that diamond transmitted the signals better than metal.

Read it.

The baby was born with a condition known as tracheomalacia that left him with a trachea susceptible to collapsing and cutting off his air supply. University of Michigan doctor Glenn Green used a 3D-printed “splint” to support the trachea in an emergency procedure, and so far the results have been extremely promising.

Pop-Up House.

Horizontal Shoe Rack.

Microfactory.

Robot Litterbox. We have one of these. They are incredibly convenient.

Bacon Stuff.

The Container Guide.

Cefaly Electric Headband.

Feddz E-Bike.

Hairpin Lockpicking.

Read it.

South Korean researchers have discovered a way to make items like credit cards and bills nearly impossible to replicate: Attach a small tag sprinkled with carbon nanotubes that acts as a totally unique fingerprint.

“Compared to other anti-counterfeit methods, the fingerprints are cheap and simple to produce, they are extremely difficult to replicate and can be authenticated very straightforwardly,” lead author Hyotcherl Ihee said in a release. His team, which is composed of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Institute for Basic Science, published their work today in Nanotechnology.

Read it.

Unlike color that we usually think of, which arises from paints and dyes absorbing certain wavelengths of light and reflecting the remainder, structural color is created when an object’s very nanostructure amplifies a specific wavelength. Cells in the cotinga’s feathers have a series of tiny pores spaced just right so that blues (and not much of anything else) are reflected back to our eyes. Because of this, if the feathers were thoroughly pulverized, the formation of pores and therefore the color would be lost. It also means that the same color could be produced from an entirely different material, if one could recreate the same pattern made by the feathers’ pores.

Read it.

Rather startling to see such concern over the security of a coin these days. (Other than a bitcoin, that is.)

Worx Hand Cleaner.

Portabe Door Jammer.

Rainmaker.

Microchip Activated Pet Feeder. I am not making this up.

SnapRays Guidelights. Unfortunately, they’re still at the Kickstarter stage.

QuickKey.

The Reg has the skinny.

Birthed by the Bill and Melinda Gates charitable foundation’s “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge”, the Sol-Char eschews the water-guzzling methods employed in the lavatories favoured by wealthy Westerners. It’s meant for users in hot equatorial areas where water is scarce and so, sadly, is proper sanitation in many cases.

Rather than a watery pan, then, a Sol-Char user deposits his or her offerings into a “reaction chamber”. Then, eight mighty parabolic mirrors focus the rays of the tropical sun down onto a “postage stamp” sized collector where the blazing combined beams are fed into fibre optic cables. These then blast the ravening photons into the chamber, achieving power output of 700 watts – comparable to that of a microwave oven – and heating the offerings up to 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

This zapping treatment swiftly converts the chamber’s smelly, unhealthy contents into a wholesome, well-nigh miraculous poo-based charcoal substance known as “biochar”.

Biochar is splendid stuff, it seems.

Read it.

About fargin’ time. The fact that teen metabolisms start later then adults or kids is not news. And it’s not as if any of them have an after-school job to go to anymore.

Read it.

These look pretty cool.

Read it.

In October of last year, the Michigan Education Association (MEA) made the claim that “99 percent” of its members remained happily unionized despite the state’s ten-month-old worker freedom law.

It is true that the union has allowed some teachers to leave without opposition as long as they had filed their separation papers last year in August, the one month during the year that the union claims teachers are “allowed” to leave. State law does not sanction this. It is only a union policy.

Regardless that it is not an enforceable law, the union threatened to send teachers who stopped paying dues to collection agencies. Letters were also sent to all union members that they must hand over bank and credit card account numbers so that the union can automatically deduct dues from their accounts.

Read it.

The case is a legacy of America’s westward expansion during the late 19th century, when Congress gave public land to private railroads to spur development of a transcontinental transportation network.

Not every project was successful, however. In 1996, one such railroad in Wyoming gave up and tore out the tracks. The U.S. Forest Service then sought to use the rights of way—which crossed through the Medicine Bow National Forest as well as 31 parcels of private property—for public trails. Read the full WSJ story here.

All but one property owner acquiesced to the trails plan: Marvin Brandt, whose 83-acre property was by far the largest and one associated with his family since his father began working at a local sawmill in 1939.

The government argued that when the railroad ended operations, certain property rights reverted to the government, such as using the right of way for a trail.

Mr. Brandt, represented by the conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation, contended that under the 1875 act providing the right of way, the railroad held only an easement, or limited right to use another’s property for a specific purpose, which expired when that use was abandoned. By a vote of 8-1, the Supreme Court agreed.

Read it.

This gravity-defying US$40k catamaran rises completely out of the water at speed on a pair of hook-shaped hydrofoils. It looks like the work of David Copperfield, but it’s real, and it’s set to start a revolution in the sailing world.

Read it.

Cities are polluting the air, ground, and water around them with heat. Roads and rooftops absorb sunlight, and swapping trees for pavement removes shade. Add all these factors together, and you get something called an “urban heat island,” an air temperature increase of up to 22 degrees Fahrenheit as you get closer to a large city. While the average human is more likely to feel this in the air, these changes also create a well of heat below the ground — and that heat, ironically, can be used as renewable energy even as it changes the ecosystem. Now, thanks to a study from Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, we know just where most of it’s coming from, and how it could be better harnessed to replace traditional heaters and air conditioners.

Read it.

China’s high-speed rail lines are becoming a major transport force for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), allowing the rapid movement of military forces throughout the country, a recent state-run news report revealed.

Since few nations are likely to invade China, the recent discussion in a Communist Party news outlet about military uses of the new rail network is raising questions about the PLA’s future role in quelling domestic unrest.

Screw Grabber.

Berry Breeze.

AuctionZip.

Opternative.

Leatherman Skeletool.

Keybrid.

Convertible Pool Table.

Tear by Hand Mailing Tape.

Modular Wall Unit Kitchen.

K5 Security Robot.

Greenlid.

Pet-safe paint. I am not making this up.

Wiring Complete.

Low tire pressure indicator caps.

Read it.

In the late 1980s, scientists at Osaka University in Japan noticed unusual repeated DNA sequences next to a gene they were studying in a common bacterium. They mentioned them in the final paragraph of a paper: “The biological significance of these sequences is not known.”

Now their significance is known, and it has set off a scientific frenzy.

The sequences, it turns out, are part of a sophisticated immune system that bacteria use to fight viruses. And that system, whose very existence was unknown until about seven years ago, may provide scientists with unprecedented power to rewrite the code of life.

In the past year or so, researchers have discovered that the bacterial system can be harnessed to make precise changes to the DNA of humans, as well as other animals and plants.

Read it.

Scientists have successfully modified the white blood cells of 12 patients living with HIV, making their cells resistant to the retrovirus and improving the study participants’ overall ability to fight off infection. The researchers achieved this result through a gene editing technique, described today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In the study, scientists extracted white blood cells, called CD4 T cells, from the participants’ blood. They then modified these cells by removing the gene responsible for the production of a protein called CCR5. The CCR5 protein is what allows HIV to enter white bloods cells in the first place, so its removal conveyed resistance. After verifying that nothing else had been altered within the cells, the researchers returned them — 10 billion of them — to the patients via blood transfusion. “The modified [white blood] cells survive longer in the presence of HIV, which we proved by stopping [antiretroviral] therapy in some patients,” says Pablo Tebas, an infectious disease physician at the University of Pennsylvania and study co-author.

Read it.

Geneticist J. Craig Venter, who has made headlines for his genomic research and helping develop what’s been called the first synthetic life form, is launching a new company with the goal of delaying aging and extending human lives. Human Longevity, Inc. is co-founded by Venter, biotechnologist and entrepreneur Robert Hariri, and Peter Diamandis, who founded the X Prize Foundation and more recently co-founded asteroid mining startup Planetary Resources. Its goal is to create the world’s most comprehensive human genome sequencing project, capturing and cross-referencing genetic information from a cross-section of people both sick and healthy — it hopes to sequence 40,000 human genomes a year, with an eventual goal of 100,000 annually.

Read it.

The 2009 epidemic and stirrings of a potential H7N9 epidemic have mobilized Fedson and other public health experts to look for new ways to decrease the effects of seasonal and pandemic flu. And according to Fedson, one surprising group of drugs, called statins, might serve just that purpose. Typically used to reduce cholesterol, they might also turn down the body’s immune response to the virus responsible for many flu-related hospitalizations and deaths.

Statins are cheap, safe, and widely available even in developing countries, which gives them a huge advantage over traditional vaccines and antivirals. Preliminary studies have hinted that people who take statins are less likely to die from influenza complications. But not everyone is convinced. Other scientists have pointed out flaws in the studies and say sufficient data doesn’t yet exist.

Read it.

If you get an outfit, you can be a beta-male slacker too.

Read it.

Join the club. Mo, join the club.

Read it.

Printing page numbers (something that appears quite necessary and obvious today) only became common typographic practice from the second quarter of the sixteenth century. And prior to the printed book, ‘foliation remained rare till the end of the Middle Ages’**; and of limited indexical or citational use as manuscripts were very rarely identical.

You had to have printing that made uniform pages before page numbers were of any real use.

Read it.

Gene therapy to modify immune cells makes them attack leukemia very effectively. 88% success rate against leukemia.