Pictured above is Bald’s Leechbook, a 10th Century Latin and Anglo-Saxon manuscript owned by the British Library. It’s a reference manual for what passed for pharmaceutical science at that time. And it’s holding up pretty well, even though it’s a thousand years old. Scientists made a salve using a recipe in the Leechbook. In laboratory experiments, that salve killed the deadly MRSA infection.

The drug is called “ … Read More → "Scientists recreate medieval medicine, find that it kills MRSA"

When you hear someone using grammar incorrectly do you make an assumption about his or her intelligence or education? There’s no doubt that words are powerful things that can leave a lasting impression on those with whom you interact. In fact, using an idiom incorrectly or screwing up your grammar is akin to walking into a meeting with messy hair. That’s according to Byron Reese, CEO of the venture-backed internet … Read More → "20 embarrassing phrases even smart people misuse"

Our future will include driverless cars.

At this year’s CES, car companies and graphics card manufacturers alike featured the technology that they believe will power the vehicles of tomorrow. I remember each morning of CES as I sipped coffee on the stoop of The Verge‘s trailer, watching Volkswagen demonstrate its new driverless parking functionality. The demonstration looked silly, but felt like looking at … Read More → "Why it won’t be long until we ride in driverless cars"

Longtime Department of Justice attorney Gerald Shur was the man behind the creation of the U.S. Marshall Service Witness Security Program (WITSEC). Shur has also co-written an informative book on the topic, Witsec: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program. More than 18,000 people have been protected from harm under WITSEC since it was initiated in 1971.
via Neatorama

If the earlier Arduino projects weren’t your cup of tea, try out this Automatic 3D Printed Tea Brewer. 24 Hour Engineer Brian McEvoy designed this project which uses the Arduino to control a servo which dunks the tea bag for a predetermined length of time for perfect brew control. The LCD readout provides information about the brewing time for various teas.
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If you’ve ever watched a flying bird weaving its way through a forest, you may have wondered how it could do so without hitting its wings on the trees. Well, birds actually do hit trees with their wings. Unlike the rigid wings of an aircraft, however, birds’ wings simply fold back under impact, then immediately fold open again to maintain flight. Now, scientists from Stanford University have developed wings for flapping-wing drones … Read More → "Bird-inspired self-folding wings could help drones recover from collisions"

… Read More → "How to make perfect sushi in five steps"

When design students at Colorado Technical University (CTU) in Colorado Springs learned that a rescued female tortoise named Cleopatra at Canyon Critters had a severely deformed shell due to malnutrition, they set about finding a solution with a 3D printer. The result was a bright red exoskeleton that would lay … Read More → "Colorado students create a bright red 3D-printed exoskeleton for a malnourished tortoise with a damaged shell"

Paul Brennan is a sheep farmer in Carlow, Ireland. He has embraced modern techniques for managing an old profession. Instead of a sheepdog, Brennan uses a quadcopter named Shep (of course) to herd his sheep! You can see it works rather well.
via Neatorama

… Read More → "The world’s first drone sheepdog"

Traffic sign recognition is exactly what it sounds like: using a forward-facing camera, usually behind the rearview mirror, an on-board computer scans the environment for signs that might be important. Over the last few years, there have been a number of cars that automatically recognize signs and flash up alerts on a digital dashboard display.

Now, Ford is combining these two technologies to create a car that automatically slows down when … Read More → "Ford’s new car automatically slows down when it sees a speed limit sign"