Military types are obsessed with the Gecko because of the unique structure of its feet, which enable it to climb walls like Spider-man. Earlier this year, DARPA told the world that one of its labs had built a pair of pads that would enable a 218-pound person wearing 50 pounds of gear to pretend that they’ … Read More → "Stanford University makes its own Gecko-inspired wall climbing pads"

Italian design office Studiomobile has teamed up with the University of Florence’s Professor Stefano Mancuso, who is the director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, to produce a prototype floating greenhouse in a bid to improve food security in areas with little arable land. The Jellyfish Barge operates off-grid and produces its own clean water via an onboard system of solar distillation.
via … Read More → "Floating off-grid greenhouse can feed two families"

The Japanese crowd sits hushed and somber as the character on stage turns away from his co-star, an actress seated on the floor in front of a small table. He lowers his head, then turns to face the audience with a look that is both blank and inscrutable, yet somehow conveys a profound sense of alarm. Something here is very wrong.

The dimly lit theater somewhere on the outskirts of Tokyo is packed. … Read More → "Will your next best friend be a robot?"

Knocking over dominoes can be a very therapeutic experience. Even more enjoyable is watching 7000 dominoes fall to create Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. The entire process took about 11 hours (as seen by the clock whizzing by).
via Mental Floss

… Read More → "Watch ‘Starry Night’ emerge from falling dominoes"

A sculpture so tiny that it cannot be seen by the naked eye is claimed the smallest sculpture of the human form ever created. Measuring a picayune 20 x 80 x 100 microns, artist Jonty Hurwitz’s tiny human statue is part of a new series of equally diminutive new sculptures that are at a scale so infinitesimally miniscule that each of the figures is approximately equal in size to the amount your fingernails grow in around … Read More → "Artist creates nanosculptures smaller than a human hair"

Martha Stewart’s affinity for drones has been well-documented, and now she’s trained her domestic eye on another buzzy emerging technology. Stewart has launched a line of custom designs with 3D printing darling MakerBot…

Stewart has been talking up her love for 3D printing  … Read More → "Martha Stewart launches a line of custom 3D printing designs"

This is Wover The Woven Rocker, a rocking room on display at the Seattle Design Festival with recliners for 12-people
via Geekologie

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In Forbes, Parmy Olsen has uncovered what appears to be the first use of data from a personal fitness tracker in court, thanks to a personal injury suit currently under way in Canada. The plaintiff, a Calgary woman, plans to use data from her Fitbit to show how her activity levels have declined since the accident. Crucially, the data is … Read More → "Fitbit data is being used as evidence in court"

1. ALGORITHM

a precise rule (or set of rules) specifying how to solve some problem

The Medieval Latin source for this word, algorismus, is actually a very bad transliteration of the name of the Arab mathematician who helped introduce higher math to the western world. His surname was al-Khwarizmi which in turn is derived from a place name.
via < … Read More → "10 words that started out as errors"