This is a video of DARPA’s Atlas robot recreating the crane kick stance from the end of Karate Kid.
via Geekologie

… Read More → "DARPA’s humanoid atlas robot performs crane kick stance from Karate Kid"

Mountain climbers facing extreme climatic conditions, patients affected by schizophrenia or neurological disorders and athletes facing severe exhaustion have all reported experiencing an invisible and yet persistent “presence” that is often felt just outside their field of view. Researchers at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have now recreated the same sensations in perfectly healthy subjects, inducing ghostly hallucinations in a matter of minutes.
via Read More → "Ghost in the machine: Scientists recreate “phantom presence” perception in the lab"

Tomorrow morning, a 10-year, 4-billion-mile journey will end when a spacecraft attempts to land on a comet for the first time.

The ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft arrived at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on August 6, settling in an orbit around the roughly 20-trillion-pound space rock, which, if you squint, kind of looks like a rubber duck. For the last couple months, Rosetta has been studying the comet, surveying its surface and measuring the … Read More → "Tomorrow, a spacecraft will try to land on a comet for the first time ever"

What if humans and dogs could better understand each other? Service dogs, rescue dogs, police dogs, even our pets: it opens up a much wider range of possibilities for working together.

A team at North Carolina State University has created a dog harness that employs a range of sensor technologies to interpret canine body language for humans, and human vocalisations for … Read More → "Canine body sensors send two-way communication to the dogs"

On November 7, 2014, Swiss cyclist François Gissy attained a speed of 207 MPH with a rocket-powered bicycle during a speed run at Circuit Paul Ricard in France. Gissy rode a lightly modified bicycle equipped with a hydrogen peroxide rocket designed by Arnold Neracher of Exotic Thermo Engineering. The rocket bike reached its top speed in an incredible 4.8 seconds. Gissy eclipsed his previous record of 177 MPH, which was set in 2013.< … Read More → "Swiss cyclist François Gissy reaches 207 MPH on a rocket-powered bicycle"

Google’s been working on its latest project for about a year and a half ago: it’s service that will store entire copies of genome. This isn’t something Google Drive can cope with – decoding DNA involves a lot of data. According to Technology Review, in raw data, one person’s genome weighs in at around 100 gigabytes. The plan is house all that DNA data online, in big ‘ole clouds where scientists … Read More → "Google Genomics can store your entire genome online for a mere $25 a year"

Here’s a cute idea from designer Sung Woo Park, from Seoul in South Korea. It’s a park bench that rotates with the turn of a handle, so if it’s been raining, you can rotate it around to sit on the dry side.
via Gizmag

Continue … Read More → "Rotating park bench always has a dry seat for you"

Every human heart has a unique heartbeat which is affected by the heart’s size, shape and position. Now Bionym have patented a system that constantly measures the pattern of a person’s heartbeat and uses that pattern to verify to various devices that the user is who they say they are.  

Founded in 2011, Bionym is a spinoff from the University of Toronto, focused … Read More → "Heartbeats used as passwords"

First revealed to the public earlier this year, NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory have finally begun testing what they hope will be a revolutionary new airplane wing design that replaces moving parts with shape-changing assemblies allowing wings to bend and twist to maneuver a craft through the air.
via Gizmodo

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Most cats enjoy a good hunt, but your average cat toys pale in comparison to stalking real prey, as they’re too predictable and don’t react to an attack. The creators behind Mousr reckon their robotic cat toy is the most engaging cat toy ever made, as it reacts to a cat’s attack and can intelligently avoid obstacles.

Mousr is, of course, shaped like a … Read More → "Sensor-packed Mousr reacts to a cat attack like a real mouse would"