Remember those Little Tikes cars from your childhood? The little red and yellow plastic things?

Back in November 2013, mechanic John Bitmead and his brother Geoff built a totally road-legal adult-sized version, and now it’s up for sale on eBay.

With a price tag of £21,500, the vehicle can be yours thanks to the wonders of the internet.

In case you were wondering, it used to be a Daewoo Matiz before the Bitmead … Read More → "Adult-sized ‘Little Tikes’ car is now up for sale on eBay"

Neuroscientists have managed to create a digital version of part of a rat brain. The Blue Brain Project is an arm of the international research consortium the Human Brain Project, which focuses on simulating the brain. The digital reconstruction, put together by 82 scientists from around the world, is about the equivalent of a cubic millimeter of brain tissue in a rat, simulating 30,000 neurons and 40 million connecting synapses. 

A cubic millimeter … Read More → "Neuroscientists create a digital rat brain"

Neuroscientists studied fMRI scans of 126 patients in the Human Connectome Project, a consortium helping to map the human brain, and found consistent connections that accurately predicted “fluid intelligence,” or abstract reasoning. Their findings were published today in the journal Nature. Researchers found that the more certain regions of the brain spoke to each other, the more likely a person was to quickly process information and make inferences, Yale grad … Read More → "Neuroscientists accurately predict intelligence with an fMRI scan"

A research team from Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Department of Energy has created a new model for how we can connect the way we power our homes and vehicles. Dubbed AMIE (Additive Manufacturing Integrated Energy), the platform features special technology that allows a bi-directional flow of energy between a dwelling and a vehicle. In other words, the house can fuel the car and the car can fuel the house. What’s more, ORNL used 3D printing … Read More → "Researchers create a 3D-printed vehicle that can power a 3D-printed home (and vice versa)"

A cloud of houseflies swarming through your home may not sound like music to your ears, but listen closer. The airborne pests are actually giving you an a capella show—always in the key of F. 

Because they lack vocal cords, insects generally make sounds by rubbing their legs together (e.g. crickets), using a vibrating membrane (e.g. cicadas), or moving their wings. The common housefly flaps its wings about 190 times … Read More → "Do all houseflies hum in key?"

Have you ever spaced out in the middle of a conversation without dozing off completely? MIT scientists now have a better idea why: only part of your brain is sleeping while the rest stays awake. Neuroscientists always suspected that, but the MIT team proved it in mice by using “optogenetics” to stimulate a part of the brain associated with sleep. They showed that the “thalamic reticular nucleus” (TRN) not only triggers slow sleep waves across the brain, but … Read More → "Lasers help prove parts of the brain ‘sleep’ while you’re awake"

We’ve previously heard about air-purifying clothing, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise to find out that scientists have now developed the aquatic equivalent – a bikini top that filters pollutants out of the water around the wearer. And yes, the technology could have other uses.

The swimwear was developed by a team at the University of California, Riverside (led by wife-and-husband electrical engineering professors Mihri and Cengiz Ozkan), working with design … Read More → "Pollution-absorbing bikini “cleans the water” while its wearer swims"

New images of Jupiter captured by the Hubble Space Telescope reveal details never seen before, including a newly identifiable filament in the “Great Red Spot” — a hurricane bigger than the size of three Earths that has raged for hundreds of years on the massive planet. The images were released on the website for NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center.

NASA scientists also used the images to create a 4K video of the planet’ … Read More → "NASA shows off new 4K views of Jupiter"

Robots that display human-like vulnerabilities may get on better with people than ones programmed to be too perfect, researchers suggest.

Experts from the University of Lincoln found that people warmed to a robot if it made mistakes and showed human-like emotions, such as boredom.

For the tests, robots were programmed to make errors, and the reactions of human participants were monitored.

The findings could affect future robot design, said researchers.< … Read More → "People ‘prefer bored robots’"

The weird and wonderful impacts of the placebo effect are well-documented for health treatments. But now a team of researchers has shown that it can help you enjoy a video game that you’re told has been updated — even when it’s exactly the same as it always was.

New Scientist reports that a team from … Read More → "The placebo effect can make you enjoy the same old video games more"