A new study estimates that people with a gun are 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.
In a first-of its-kind study, epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that, on average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in [...]

Little People With a Great Big Idea!
A community of dwarves has set up its own village to escape discrimination from normal sized people.
Everyone in the mountain commune in Kunming, southern China, must be under 4ft 3ins tall and they run their own police force and fire brigade from their 120 residents.

Behold the incredible inspiring carvings of Takashi Itoh.

Anybody can carve a pumpkin. In fact a couple companies have devolved templates and tools for the carver handicapped among to produce astounding results. However Takashi Itoh’s original watermelon carvings put most of them to shame!  Takashi says it only took him three weeks to become skilled at it, but he has been [...]

Overstressing the ultra ultra conservative moral fiber
of an overly conservative society?

A leading Egyptian scholar has demanded that people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country should face the death penalty.
Abdul Mouti Bayoumi said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law.
The device is [...]

Each inmate costs US taxpayers more than $22,000 a year
From the death penalty to “three strikes” laws, Americans love tough responses to crime—but not necessarily smart ones. Nils Christie has a better idea: Stop treating lawbreakers like criminals.
“I don’t like the term crime—it’s such a big, fat, imprecise word,” says the renowned University of Oslo [...]

“We’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore”
7-Eleven Inc. said Thursday that its franchisees and store operators have collected 1.6 million signatures nationwide in its petition drive against what it calls unfair credit card fees.
The Dallas-based convenience store chain held the signature drive from June 22 through Aug. 10 at store counters [...]

The tiny Pacific nation of Palau is creating the world’s first shark sanctuary, a biological hotspot to protect great hammerheads, leopard sharks, oceanic whitetip sharks and more than 130 other species fighting extinction in the Pacific Ocean. But with only one boat to patrol 240,000 square miles (621,600 square kilometers) of Palau’s newly protected waters [...]

scientists have developed a pair of glasses that receive visual data from a camera mounted on a them and send the images to a chip attatched on the side of the eyeball.

Inspired by the success of cochlear implants that can restore hearing to some deaf people, researchers at MIT are working on a retinal implant [...]

A Handy and Unique Way To Score A Booze Buzz

Inmates have been drinking the liquid soap placed on their wing after realising it contained alcohol. The detergent was meant to beat off the threat of swine flu in the Verne Prison on Portland, Dorset.
However, instead of rubbing it into their hands, inmates at the category C [...]

A lamp that works bloody well!

Mike Thompson’s “Blood Lamp” is a single-use lantern that draws its energy from a drop of your blood, making you consider the cost of energy in a uniquely personal way.
For the lamp to work one must…

[process2a: Dodecahedron]
The folks over at Vague Terrain have spent some time reprocessing  the power of  Platonic Solids.
“In this project we explore three-dimensional subdivision algorithms. These have traditionally been used in computer graphics to produce smooth, rounded forms from coarse polygons. By modifying and expanding these established algorithms to include additional weights, one can generate forms with [...]

You too can become a citizen of a virtual country
Wirtland, world’s first sovereign internet-based country, revealed the design of plastic identity card. Every citizen of Wirtland, who has submitted the Citizenship Application Form and scans of photograph and signature, is eligible for receiving the personal ID card. New applications for residence permit and ID card [...]

Job Voyager is a set of interactive charts showing changing occupations reported to the US Census Bureau from 1850-2000. It was made by Jeffrey Heer of the University of California at Berkeley from data collected by the University of Minnesota’s Population Center using the visualization software Flare. You can use the feature to examine the [...]

Return to the moon is part of the Google Lunar X Prize
Today, Team Selenokhod, a Russian group of engineers and managers, announced its official entry into the Google Lunar X PRIZE – a $30 million competition that challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch to the moon a privately [...]

Spy toy gadget maker Brando has this “Magic GIANT 12-Surface IQ Pentagon – Fantastic Edition” for $49.90.

The FANTASTIC SIZE and COMPLEX IQ Cube!! The GIANT 12 surfaces IQ Pentagon! You may never face this complicated one! Your home cannot miss this one. You may not solve it, you can just disassemble it and try it [...]

Road safety experts are drawing up special road signs warning drivers of drunks in the road after a landmark legal ruling ahead of Europe’s biggest beer festival.
A motorcyclist was this week ordered to pay more than £2,000 compensation to a drunk who’d wandered in front of her bike during the Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.

A new green clean

Washing dishes in a full-loaded dishwasher without pre-rinsing saves water (particularly expensive hot water) over washing by hand. This steam dishwasher designed by Vincent Liew saves even more water and energy!

As the title suggests, this dishwasher uses pressurized steam to dislodge food particles on dishes and sanitize them. A hearty rinse after [...]

A skeleton, found at one of the most important, but least understood, Roman sites in Britain is puzzling experts from The University of Nottingham.
A skeleton, found at one of the most important, but least understood, Roman sites in Britain is puzzling experts from The University of Nottingham.

Read it and weep…

Scathing and right-on visual commentary on the lotto from Cracked.com — it’s not just a tax on innumeracy, it’s a finely tuned psychological weapon used to exploit cognitive blind-spots and profit from human misery.
The recession has seen a rise in lotto sales as people streamline their financial idiocy from “paying for money [...]

The New Hairy Solar Panel

A new type of solar panel using human hair could provide the world with cheap, green electricity, believes its teenage inventor.
Milan Karki, 18, who comes from a village in rural Nepal, believes he has found the solution to the developing world’s energy needs.
The young inventor says hair is easy to use [...]

A Ballsy Invention At The Time

The first Nerf product debuted forty years ago today. It began as a humble orange ball created by toy developer Reyn Guyer. His team designed several games that could be played with it and marketed it to Milton Bradley. That company turned him down. So Guyer took his product to [...]

The First YouTube video. Have you ever wondered how the whole YouTube craze began? Here it is! The first YouTube video features Jawed Karim… who’s like the Brian Dunkleman of YouTube founders… standing at a zoo, talking about an elephant. It was posted on April 23rd, 2005.  Don’t expect the revolution to begin immediately…

The Greener Home Competition
Fifty Longmont homeowners could get full-house makeovers.
But that wouldn’t mean new couches, matching drapes and fresh paint.
These makeovers would include installing solar panels, wind turbines and data-control centers to manage energy use and safety systems.
Englewood-based DaVinci Quest is putting together a global contest to invite teams to design environmentally friendly smart homes [...]

Switching Traffic to the Sales Lane
These days, the tech-savvy small business is using search engine optimization to steer customers to its home page. But once those online visitors land, how do you get them to buy? Sure, you can pay a lot for site analytics that give you insights into those potential customers’ shopping habits. [...]

When economists fail
It’s hard to believe now, but not long ago economists were congratulating themselves over the success of their field. Those successes — or so they believed — were both theoretical and practical, leading to a golden era for the profession. On the theoretical side, they thought that they had resolved their internal disputes. [...]