It looks like a statue of the Buddha. It is, in a way. But inside, there are the mummified remains of a human body. Tradition holds that they are a Buddhist monk who lived around the year 1100 AD. Last year, the statue left China for the first time. The Drents Museum, an art and history museum in Assen, The Netherlands, arranged for it to be viewed through a CT scanning machine.
… Read More → "CT scan reveals that statue of the Buddha is actually a mummy"

If you’ve got a baby on the way and are worried that parenting might be a little overwhelming, don’t worry, there’s now an app for that. Fisher-Price’s new 4-in-1 Smart Connect Cradle ‘n Swing can be remotely operated from a smartphone or tablet using a free accompanying app, so you don’t need to be anywhere near a restless infant to rock, soothe, or help put it … Read More → "This cradle lets you remotely rock your baby to sleep from your phone"

Wearable electronics is a hot topic these days. Although these fancy talons are only for show, they could lead to more in the future.

[Shelby] and [Colleen AF] showed people how to include a laser cutter in your nail care at a recent event at NYC Resistor. The technique used here starts off with a base coat of the background color before heading to the laser cutter. Now don’t worry, … Read More → "PCB manicure wields laser cutter for your nails"

UK design firm Kinneir Dufort has created a machine that utilizes cutting edge technologies like facial recognition and 3D printing to create customized pancakes with images of real faces. As with added 3D printing, the machine squirts the batter on a griddle layer by layer, in order to create different shades based on how long the level … Read More → "A high-tech appliance that uses facial recognition to 3D print flapjacks with custom faces"

Russian photographer Vadim Trunov recently captured a series of photographs showing wild squirrels doing human things. In the snow covered forests outside the city of Voronezh in western Russia, Trunov set out some props and waited with his camera as a pair of squirrels entered his makeshift set.
via Peta Pixel

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Is your apartment or workspace seriously lacking in natural light? Well listen up – Italian physicist Paolo Di Trapani of the University of Insubria has invented an artificial daylight device called CoeLux that looks just like the sunny sky! And unlike other artificial daylight fixtures, CoeLux actually replicates the color temperature of sunlight and the way the sun moves across the sky.
via … Read More → "Brilliant invention brings LED sunshine to windowless rooms"

There’s a lot of water constantly moving through the municipal pipelines of most major cities. While the water itself is already destined for various uses, why not harness its flow to produce hydroelectric power? Well, that’s exactly what Lucid Energy’s LucidPipe Power System does, and Portland, Oregon has just become the latest city to adopt it.

LucidPipe simply replaces a stretch of existing gravity-fed conventional pipeline, that’s used for transporting … Read More → "Portland to generate electricity within its own water pipes"

We’ll know we’re living in the future when our furniture can assemble itself at will. It’s something that MIT and others are working on, and the most recent work from the university’s self-assembly lab shows how far the process has come. Before you chuck that IKEA catalog, however, you should probably be aware of one small thing: … Read More → "MIT’s self-assembling chair is cool, but you can’t sit on it yet"

… Read More → "Better birding with Dennis Hlynsky"