Think prayer is all you can do to keep your home safe in the middle of a warzone?  With the X-Flex bomb-surviving wallpaper, you just might have another line of defense.  It’s not exactly salvation, but it could help keep your fortress intact for just a little while longer.
Invented by Berry Plastics in conjunction with [...]

Blast Your Ashes Into Space…

As cremations have become more and more popular in recent years, people have devised a number of unusual ways to commemorate the dearly departed. If you’re looking for a unique way to be remembered, here are 12 strange things you can do with your cremated remains.

Behold the helmet of head health

Stressed from all the pretending that you do at the office?   Forget medicating, all you need is some liberating pressure on your skull.  At least, that’s what Kinatech is thinking with the new Headtime Scalp Massager, a huge, head-crowning bowl that looks like it’s raring to fry your brains.
Looking like [...]

A drug that failed tests as an antidepressant is being hailed as “Viagra for women” after surprising but not unpleasant side effects.
In three separate trials, the drug flibanserin did wonders for women’s flagging sex drive despite doing nothing to lift mood.
The accidental discovery is akin to Viagra’s – it was originally designed as a heart [...]

ROAMS Robot uses off-the-shelf components to build 3D maps of an area
At a robotics conference, a vehicle called ROAMS demonstrated a cheap approach to mobile map-making. 
ROAMS (Remotely Operated and Autonomous Mapping System) was created by researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, with funding from the U.S. Army. It uses several existing [...]

A sensing surface developed by Microsoft researchers offers new ways to use computers.
Computer users have been typing on keyboards and clicking on mice for more than 20 years. An experimental new interface under development at Microsoft could give them a completely new way to use their system.
 

 
Anybots “QA” at Work
Having one of those days where even a hearty bowl of Fruit Loops and Jack Daniels can’t get you out of bed? A telepresence robot can come into the office for you, elevating telecommuting to a decidedly new level. The somewhat humanoid ‘bots, produced by Mountain View, California-based Anybots, are controlled via [...]

Artist’s conception of the “boiling disk” surrounding the massive young stellar object known as Orion Source I. A disk of hot, ionized gas surrounds the central star, blocking our view
The constellation of Orion is a hotbed of massive star formation, most prominently in the Great Nebula that sits in Orion’s sword. The glowing gas of [...]

An adult male extends his right arm toward an adult female in order to greet her.
Most of the linguistic functions in humans are controlled by the left cerebral hemisphere. A study of captive chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center (Atlanta, Georgia), reported in the January 2010 issue of Elsevier’s Cortex, suggests that this [...]

This image shows the process by which Photosystem I in thermophilic blue-green algae can be catalyzed by platinum to produce a sustainable source of hydrogen.
In the quest to make hydrogen as a clean alternative fuel source, researchers have been stymied about how to create usable hydrogen that is clean and sustainable without relying on an [...]

Over 5000 worked flints came from one small area, including flint cores used for tool creation, blades, flakes and ‘debitage’

Staff at the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) have been excited by the results from a recently excavated major Prehistoric site at Asfordby, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. The Mesolithic site may date from as early [...]

A genetic variation may contribute to how empathetic a human is, and how that person reacts to stress.
Researchers have discovered a genetic variation that may contribute to how empathetic a human is, and how that person reacts to stress. In the first study of its kind, a variation in the hormone/neurotransmitter oxytocin’s receptor was linked [...]

Many people think that the hearing impaired would have lost a large part of being human, that is, being unable to experience the joy of music. Well, have you ever attended a deaf church’s worship service? Those involve drums that lets the congregation literally feel the beat of the song, and the Sounzzz concept is [...]

Theme rooms for the furry friendly

French workers tired of the rat race have been offered the chance to live like a hamster for the night instead. For only 99 euros a night (£88), people in Nantes can cage themselves in the specially-designed hotel.  (video after jump…)

Covcoa BIO in Spain claim that special amino acids contained in the recipe trick your brain into believing you’re not hungry
It’s a sweet idea that sounds too good to be true  -  a chocolate that helps you lose weight.  Yet according to the makers, that’s exactly what a new brand of chocolate will do.
 

Normal synaptic activity in nerve cells protects the brain from the misfolded proteins associated with Huntington’s disease, researchers have discovered.
Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham), the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics and the University of California, San Diego have found that normal synaptic activity in nerve cells (the [...]

Adelie penguins have survived in Antarctica for thousands of years and are invaluable for genetic research.
Penguins that died 44,000 years ago in Antarctica have provided extraordinary frozen DNA samples that challenge the accuracy of traditional genetic aging measurements, and suggest those approaches have been routinely underestimating the age of many specimens by 200 to 600 [...]

NIST postdoctoral researcher David Hanneke at the laser table used to demonstrate the first universal programmable processor for a potential quantum computer.
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated the first “universal” programmable quantum information processor able to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics — the rules governing the submicroscopic [...]

Cynomolgus macaque. New research in these primates suggests that a gene delivery strategy that produces follistatin can improve muscle mass and function.
A study appearing in Science Translational Medicine puts scientists one step closer to clinical trials to test a gene delivery strategy to improve muscle mass and function in patients with certain degenerative muscle disorders.

The IMaX instrument not only depicts the solar surface, it also makes magnetic fields visible; these appear as black or white structures in the polarised light.
The Sun is a bubbling mass. Packages of gas rise and sink, lending the sun its grainy surface structure, its granulation. Dark spots appear and disappear, clouds of matter dart [...]

Captured on film

Obsessed with cameras much?  While you can probably deny it, the owner of this vehicle – the Camera Van – can’t.  Literally decked in thousands of cameras, it’s what the Google Street View cars would have looked like if their designers had some panache.  Or were clinically insane.  Either will do.
First created by [...]

Don’t go bumping these cars!

Here’s an interesting up-cycling story about some boy toys that have found legal ground and even more fun from a bumped up perspective.
“Bumper cars were crazy fun when I was a kid. Even as an adult today, they still look immensely entertaining and I’d probably be on one every weekend if only [...]

Go Go Gadget High Voltage Robot!

Fiddling with high-voltage power lines is certainly a dangerous job, especially for humans. With that in mind, a Tokyo-based company, HiBot, is working with western Japan’s Kansai Electric Power Co. to test a new robot next year that can inspect several power cables at once, and we’re fairly sure that [...]

Am I gonna be able to see my sexts on there?

You may really love your Marlboro lights, but we seriously doubt that you love them enough to be willing to purchase a cigarette-box-phone (if that’s what you call it). This phone is a dual-band GSM device, has a 1.6-inch display, MP3/MP4 player, Bluetooth, FM radio, and [...]

Only available to the US Military (and Blackwater employees?), this new shotgun is fully automatic and can shoot a mini-missle.