3D printers are great at creating small objects – and some can even be pressed into doing larger things, such as cars – but a 3D printer able to print a full-sized house would have to be, well, bigger than a house. To tackle this problem, a team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in Barcelona removed the size restrictions of a printer altogether by … Read More → "Team of 3D-printing “Minibuilder” robots print large-scale structures on site"

That was the year that he, along with Robert Noyce, first demonstrated a functioning IC which combines multiple electronic functions on a single slab. Most often that is silicon, but in the late 50s Kilby turned to germanium. Now you have a chance own a piece of computer history, which Kilby and his team eventually one a Nobel Prize for in 2000.
via Engadget</ … Read More → "A 56-year-old prototype of the first microchip going up for auction"

If you want to watch a spider eat a fish—and you know you do—you need to think like a spider.

First, go where the water is still: A windless lake, or a bend in a lazy stream. This is where fish wait for insects to fly close to the surface. It’s a place where the fish feels comfortable. The spider is comfortable, too: Its hind legs anchored on … Read More → "Spiders are eating fish on every continent except Antarctica"

Paraplegic athletes push their bodies to the absolute limit—and sometimes beyond. When an athlete injures a body part he or she can’t feel, that can lead to some very dangerous situations. Now, a design team at Imperial College London has an ingenious solution: an athletic suit that uses off-the-shelf pressure sensing film to show where serious impacts have occurred.

Read More → "Color-changing suit shows injuries that paralyzed athletes can’t feel"

What if a schizophrenic patient could have the equivalent of a therapist in a pocket, watching for symptoms of a relapse? That’s the promise of a smartphone-based system now being tested at a hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y. The app, called CrossCheck, uses a suite of sensors to create a profile of a patient’s healthy behavioral and social patterns and … Read More → "Smartphone app keeps watch over schizophrenic patients"

Global engineering firm Arup usually tackles massively complex projects like designing tracks for the Second Avenue subway in Manhattan or turning Zaha Hadid’s soaring sketches into reality. But their latest project is a humble piece of hardware—and it’s no less awesome.

The idea for the project began in the wake of a complex lighting structure that featured high-tension cables held together with 1,000 custom-designed … Read More → "A taste of how 3D printing could transform high-tech architecture"

The science of sleep and its glorious effects on creativity, productivity, and sanity gets a lot of press these days. That said, the sleep habits of some of your favorite writers, musicians, and artists may surprise you a little.

The bedtimes and rising times of history’s greatest minds are inventively illustrated in this New York infographic based on Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals: How Artists Work.* The infographic seems to debunk the myth that geniuses stay up through the wee hours working … Read More → "The sleep schedules of 27 of history’s greatest minds"

At first glance, “Vessyl” looks like an ultra-modern, but relatively ordinary, 13 oz (385 ml) mug. However, pour something into it and it becomes extraordinary: not only will it identify what type of drink it has in it, but Vessyl will also tell you its dietary content, such as sugar, protein, calories, fat, caffeine – even identifying the beverage by name – then take all of those results and synchronize them to your smartphone.
via < … Read More → "Vessyl is no mug – it’s a smart cup that tells you what you’re drinking"

You’ve jumped on one trampoline, you jumped on them all, right? Wrong, you cynical sad sack. The mother of all trampolines is currently being readied for its public unveiling inside a series of caverns in Wales. Yep: It’s a network of trampolines hung from the walls of an old slate mine.

In the Welsh mining … Read More → "The coolest trampoline on Earth is suspended inside a huge cavern"

A “hitchhiking, tweeting, and trivia-loving robot” named hitchBOT will soon embark on a coast-to-coast, 3871-mile trek across Canada. It was initially conceived by Dr. David Harris Smith and Dr. Frauke Zeller as a collaborative art project. Armed with 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, hitchBOT will be capable of accessing Wikipedia, interacting with social media, and both recognizing and processing speech. One thing it can’t … Read More → "Hitchhiking robot will charm its way across Canada"