Light-up Shower
Monday, February 20, 2006
Generated by water pressure, LED attached to a shower head glows. Since the color of LED changes depending on the water temperature, you can tell the water temperature intuitively.
Generated by water pressure, LED attached to a shower head glows. Since the color of LED changes depending on the water temperature, you can tell the water temperature intuitively.
Study: Criminals Tend To Be Ugly?
Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they're also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood.
"We find that unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones, and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking," claim Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University.
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Science News
(image from nataliedee)1. Sick spouses raise risk of death for partners
2. Increased CO2 may cause plant life to raise rivers
3. Leggier cane toads step up efforts to conquer Australia
4. 'Sleeping on it' best for complex decisions
Fusion Watch
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Fancy having a "fusion" reactor on your wrist ? Now you can with the Tokyo Fusion Watch.The display is very simple to read. The outer ring indicates hours, the inner ring for minutes. The 30 small dots in the centre are seconds, they fill up to 30 and then drain down to make 60.
PopGadget Products
Adjust-A-Spoon
slide your way to your desired measurement with what appears to be a minimum amount of hassle.
Color Changing Microwave Spoons
Designed to stay in the bowl while you heat your food and will change color to alert you that your food is ready. Could come in handy when heating up baby food too.
Sanyo will soon begin shipping this induction heat-type cooking stove that features voice navigation and downloadable ringtones that let you know when dinner is done.
The talkative stove can also function as a coach for aspiring chefs, reading out recipes and cooking instructions. And, with its voice navigation, this is one kitchen assistant that will follow your orders.
A Machine Called WashDryIron
WashDryIron is a new machine which washes, dries and irons clothes; designed by Oliver Blackwell, a University of Plymouth graduate. The machine would probably become an object of desire because it saves about 10 days a year in ironing time.The machine washes, dries and irons clothes in separate compartments and is said to eliminate colour runs, shrinkage and ironing. It can tackle up to 16 items at a time, including king-size bed sheets. Because hangers are used, they do not become entangled and have 83% fewer creases, according to the designer. The items are then dried and ironed by hot air blown across them.
Check Out These Nice Stuff
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
cute vikings i saw at asterisko's blog
table bed. Transforms from a generous size dining or work table to a comfortable bed in seconds.
Virus That Kills Cancer Cells
Professors Amos Panet and Zichria Zakay-Rones, from the Department of Virology at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, have been involved during the past five years in research that could create a new and effective weapon in the fight against cancer, as well as change the way we look at viruses.The NDV-HUJ virus shows outstanding preference for infecting cancerous cells. NDV-HUJ is a natural variant of NDV (Newcastle Disease Virus) which usually affects birds. Being an attenuated variant (e.g., weakened virus), it is innately preferentially targets and replicates in certain types of tumor cells, leaving normal cells almost unaffected.
Using the NDV-HUJ virus will enable doctors to specifically target cancer cells without the risk of severely affecting the patient.
Viro-therapy is not a new idea. Its roots could be found in the mid 20th Century, when a number of physicians noticed an interesting phenomenon: some of their patients, who suffered from cancer and had an incidental viral infection, or subjected to vaccination, were now improving, experiencing a remission from their symptoms.
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8X5 Meme
Monday, February 13, 2006
Got this meme from AW. Im not gonna tag anyone because this meme is quite long. This is just for your consumption. But if you find this challenging then go ahead write yours.5 Jobs
1. Math teacher 2. Sales representative 3. Assistant Pastor 4. Training center staff 5. Systems Administrator
5 Movies
1. Saving Private Ryan 2. Gladiator 3. Star Wars 4. Harry Potter 5. Catch Me If You Can & (may i add 1?) The Aviator
5 TV Shows
1. Medical Detectives 2. Friends 3. CSI 4. Fear Factor 5. Clean House (niecy nash)
5 Places Lived (Philippines only)
1. Quezon City 2. Cebu City 3. Cagayan de Oro City 4. Butuan City 5. Pagadian City
5 Vacation Places
(sorry. haven't had any vacation.)
5 Places I Would Like To Be (to visit)
1. Spain 2. Germany 3. USA 4. Any Scandinavian country 5. Eastern Europe
5 Favourite Foods
1. Raw fish 2. Durian 3. Grilled fish 4. Ice cream 5. Roasted pig
5 Websites
1. my blog and my friends' blog. eheheh. 2. google 3. yahoo 4. bloglines 5. boing boing
Solar Bag
The Voltaic solar bags are mobile power generators, designed to charge your devices without tying you to a power outlet, which makes them ideal for traveling.check out site
Study: Mental Declines Can Be Reversed
As we move past retirement age, most of us will not be as mentally sharp as we once were, but a study suggests we may be able to reverse the trend. Dennis Foth, a professor in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Extension, says some people might have that talent.
Foth said mental declines are pathological for about 10 percent of the population over the age of 65, and not much can be done at this time for the debilitating cognitive effects of diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. But for the other 90 percent of the population, cognitive decline need not be inevitable.
"A lifetime of good mental habits pays off," Foth said. "People who are curious at a young age are more likely to be mentally active and stay active as they age. And we found it is never too late to start. With a little effort, even people in their 70s and 80s can see dramatic improvements in their cognitive skills."
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Parasite That Makes Zombie Cockroaches
This is the wasp named Ampulex compressa.As an adult, Ampulex compressa seems like your normal wasp, buzzing about and mating. But things get weird when it's time for a female to lay an egg. She finds a cockroach to make her egg's host, and proceeds to deliver two precise stings. The first she delivers to the roach's mid-section, causing its front legs buckle. The brief paralysis caused by the first sting gives the wasp the luxury of time to deliver a more precise sting to the head.
The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use sensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.
From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.
The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp's burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.
The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon--which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.
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Liquid Condom
A man shows a bottle of newly-developed liquid condom for women use he bought from a drugstore in Yichang, Hubei Province.The new product, making use of naometer and physical foaming technologies, is said to be easy to apply, anti-bacterial and lubricating. The invisible condom, developed by a company in south China's Guangdong Province, has won approval from the province's drug administration and is now available in drugstores in the country.
Smart Doorknob
The BioKnob is an advance-technology biometric door lock shaped like an elegant doorknob. At the center of the outside knob is a tiny sensor that registers the pattern of users, thumb or fingerprint patterns. Up to 100 users can have their fingerprints enrolled in the BioKnob for entry.Users no longer have to carry keys, or worry about losing or forgetting them.
Fight Tooth Decay With Electricity
The Israeli company Fluorinex Active has developed a new technology for fighting tooth decay. The company is currently working on a small device which together with a gel will impose an efficient ion exchange process through an Electro-chemical reaction in which fluor ions displace the Hydroxide ions at the outer layer of the tooth. This is intended to produce a new mineral layer with significantly improved chemical and physical resistance to the aggressive bacteria and the resulting acidic environment in the mouth.
The technology uses an existing fluoride-based gel along with a device which produces a small electric current (6-9 volt, at low amperage) to achieve activation of the teeth that will enable the formation of a genuine electrolyte when activated. This in turn enhances the fluor ion attraction to the teeth and its exchange that transforms into a highly resistant and protective mineral layer.
read article...
Top 10 Weirdest USB Devices
George Foreman USB iGrill
USB heated slippers
USB heating gloves
The USB vibrator. WHAT????? That's crazy!
check the others out
What Does The Moon Smell Like?
...like gunpowder. The latest installment in NASA's Apollo Chronicles is all about the smell of Moondust.
What is moondust made of? Almost half is silicon dioxide glass created by meteoroids hitting the moon. These impacts, which have been going on for billions of years, fuse topsoil into glass and shatter the same into tiny pieces. Moondust is also rich in iron, calcium and magnesium bound up in minerals such as olivine and pyroxene. It's nothing like gunpowder.
So why the smell? No one knows.
CarDesk
Some people just can't let go of their car. The Mini Statements Mini Desk sells for £2500 (about $4,422 USD), perfect for those people who miss their mobile office.
Bullet Pictures
Thursday, February 02, 2006
You can't take pictures like these at home, but if you join the High-Speed Imaging at Edgerton center you can. The photos taken by the students are absolutely awesome.
see more pictures
Stylish Surveillance from Panasonic
Peek-a-boo!
It looks like a fancy hanging lamp that you would see in a fashionable Architectural Digest home. But it's really the WV-CW960 surveillance camera. It has a 300x zoom lens, and a digital flip function to follow moving objects. And for a mere $5,200 you can keep an eye on Al Qaeda conspirators, or the WMDs in your backyard.
The Moody Media Player And Other Inventions
(image from masterdigital)A media player that selects songs based on its owner's latest mood.
The device has wrist sensors that measure body temperature, perspiration and pulse rate. It uses these measurements to build a profile of what music or video the owner plays when they are hot, cold, dry or sweaty, and when their pulse is racing or slow.
The device then comes up with suggestion to fit each and every profile, either using songs or videos in its library or downloading something new that should be suitable.
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Ethanol Can Replace Gasoline
Putting ethanol instead of gasoline in your tank saves oil and is probably no worse for the environment than burning gasoline, according to a new analysis by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. The researchers note, however, that new technologies now in development promise to make ethanol a truly "green" fuel with significantly less environmental impact than gasoline.
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Britons Unconvinced on Evolution
(image from the legacy)The BBC is reporting that more than half of Britons do not believe in evolution, with a further 40% advocating that creationism or intelligent design should be taught in school science classes. Someone said, "I'm a Brit myself, and I thought most people over here thought these views were outdated and lacked substance. None of my close friends give any credit to creationism or ID, but we're all well educated athiests so I guess that's to be expected. Maybe I've been blind to the views of the majority in this proudly secular country?"
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