Although this chair looks like it’s made from LEGO, designer Matthew Plummer Fernandez actually used a much more geeky material in building it: sound waves. The Sound/Chair has contours that precisely match sound waves mapped on a 3D graph of volume (height), frequency (depth), and time (width). We love the purple color, too (but then again, we would).
Researchers at Purdue University are working on tech that will turn every cellphone into a roaming nuclear weapon sniffer and are lobbying Congress to legally require cellphone users and carriers to participate. The Distributed Nuclear Detection by Ubiquitous Cellphone project would be kind of like the massive cellphone dragnet in The Dark Knight, but it would look for terrorists sneaking dirty bombs and nuclear weapons instead of the Joker.
Researchers from the University of Missouri have made a major contribution to the field of medicine and the use of gold nanoparticles to treat everything from arthritis to cancer and in new modes of medical imaging — not to mention the dozens of other fields that utilize gold nanoparticles in processes and/or products.
Rigid, stuck-to-the-wall blackboards will soon find their way to the recycling house. In an era where ‘monologues’ are taboo, the Flexboard comes as a perfect response to our ‘interactivity’ needs. It is an established fact that classrooms are the best places to learn. Hence, it is also essential that the learning is structured to suit the learner. With the Flexboard, the training can either be team collaboration-based, project-based or one-on-one (especially for the slow learners).
MIT researchers have designed a new robotic underwater vehicle that can hover in place like a helicopter — an invaluable tool for deepwater oil explorers, marine archaeologists, oceanographers and others.
Pauline W. Chen: I would like to believe that I am a compassionate doctor. But when I must convey bad news to a patient, one of the first things I worry about is time.
Students from the faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, in cooperation with four students from Pennsylvania State University have developed a submarine deployable helicopter. Their autonomous “Waterspout” is capable of exiting a submarine, floating safely to the water surface, and taking off vertically to its destination.
If you’re looking for the smallest most sophisticated R/C flying vehicle around then your wait is over. The Micro R/C 4-Channel Flying Saucer incorporates amazing technology in a package not much larger than your outstretched palm. With 4-propellers you’d assume the Micro Flying Saucer would be hard to keep balanced in the air, however this problem is solved by the built in solid-state accelerometer.
Low libido? You can try out the soft green heart-shaped leaf of the horny goat weed instead of the common anti-impotence pills, for a new study has revealed that it could also rekindle your sexual desire.
Over the past few months, Twitter has emerged as one of the hottest online tools of all time. But while Twitter serves well as a vibrant social network, its also serves as a legitimate business tool. People on Twitter use it to find people working on similar projects, doing similar work, or with common interests.
Scientists from the University of Illinois have developed photonic crystal biosensors that would contribute a great deal to drug development, by detecting DNA-protein interactions. The physical setup of the biosensors include a low RI (refractive index) polymer grating that has an outer film coating of high RI Titanium Oxide. Above the film sits a standard microplate with 384 wells. Essentially, each well will have a biosensor at its base and will act like a test tube where DNA-protein reactions are studied.
Among the many bills Congress is considering before it recesses for the November elections is a proposed land swap between the State of Alaska and the federal government that would allow a gravel road to be built through a remote national wildlife refuge.
If you had been worrying about breast cancer, a bra may be able to warn you in case you develop cancerous tissues. The bra would detect the cancerous growths before they can spread to other areas and help a lot in prognosis, as cancer always needs to be treated early for better results.
It’s about time the whole restaurant menu/payment ritual was streamlined. To the rescue comes EPOS-lite, a design concept for a tablet that serves as both a menu and wireless payment device. It even wirelessly recharges itself as you place it on the tabletop.
You won’t have your grandparents over to your posh, colorful apartment in Tokyo while living at the Reversible Destiny Lofts. Designed by NY-based architects Arakawa & Gins (who, between you and me, need to pick some different colors for their website), these units are packed full of all sorts of hurdles only the youthful could put up with: uneven floors, balcony doors you have to crawl through, spherical rooms, blinding colors, transparent showers - the list goes on.
A daily dose of computer games can boost students’ scores on standard math tests, says a new research. The study, which was carried out in Scottish schools, was conducted by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) - the main organization for the development of the curriculum.
As Japanese consumers become ever more “fussy” over food safety issues, there is a growing demand for technology that improves food quality. To ease the minds of health-conscious meat-eaters, researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Animal Health (NIAH) have developed a convenient method for identifying cattle infected with mad cow disease, simply by measuring the brain waves they produce in response to audio stimuli.
The compact Volkswagen Beetle has always been a fuel-efficient car, but what about applying that conservationist model to a house? German architect Mark Voglreiter took up the challenge and nailed it with the “Auto Residence.” Its thermal insulation makes it very energy-efficient. The house was rented in 2004 for a pricey $2,500 euros a month-and we thought people living in their cars were trying to save money!
The iSound, designed by Seohyun Baek, is a set of headphones that lets you to listen to your mp3 player while still hearing the background noise around you. That’s a pretty handy thing, especially when that background noise is oncoming traffic.
The Z Pen is a fairly normal looking pen which can be used to write as normal. Once writing has been completed you can then download data from it and have the writing converted to text with OCR.
The 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge has just concluded with some pretty astonishing imagery in the winning slots. This picture, dubbed “Glass Forest,” is a scanning electron micrograph of diatoms (weird unicellular algae) clinging to a marine worm, and won the photography category: to my eyes it looks half like a palm tree and half like a Star Trek effect. The illustration category winner is even more amazing.
Take one look at this idea and you know it’s a good one. You’ve been there: you’re at a cocktail party, hungry enough to eat a horse, but you don’t have enough hands to hold your drink, a heaping plate of tasty vittles and a fork, and still be able to shake hands with everyone as you work the room.
Could microSD cards - tiny devices the size of a fingernail - replace bulky CDs and intangible downloads for next-generation music lovers? Selling albums in microSD format is the latest concept from SanDisk, the California-based manufacturer of flash memory cards and developer of SD cards, which are now widely licensed.
Political conservatives operate out of a fear of chaos and absence of order while political liberals operate out of a fear of emptiness, a new Northwestern University study soon to be published in the Journal of Research in Personality finds.
Count this as another busted myth of modern times: In family life, the husband always wields the television remote. Lately, the wife is just as likely to be changing the channels. A poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center showed that 21st century couples share decision making in many aspects of American family life, and nowhere is that equity greater than in front of the household television. The poll found that 27 percent of people say women control the remote; 26 percent say that men do; and 25 percent say the couple decides together.
