“Almost 1 in 4 garments are being returned – 70% of those returns are because the customer’s got the wrong size,” says Heikki Haldre, Chief Executive and founder of London-based Fits.me.

Companies like his are using technology to reduce these high return rates.

Fits.me has developed a virtual fitting room that works in conjunction with a retailer’s online store. Shoppers enter some basic measurements and a virtual … Read More → "‘Virtual mannequins’ promise a better fit"

Rosetta—the first man-made spaceship to land on an comet—is alive and well. It just sent its first signal to the world after going into sleep mode 31 months ago. Scientists were anxious, hoping that the computer and the interplanetary probe would alright. All systems: nominal.

The space probe—launched by … Read More → "First spaceship to land on a comet just woke up after 31-month sleep"

It’s cool to understand typography now, to have a favorite typeface, and to be able to bore your friends about the differences between Arial and Verdana. The Japanese company Type wants to put your favorite typography on your face in the form of glasses. Type has created two lines of glasses that take design inspiration from a couple of the most well-known … Read More → "These glasses let you see the world through your favorite typeface"

Yu Shaocai is a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employee and an expert on “wet deposition,” a process by which falling raindrops or snowflakes “scavenge” aerosol particles from the air. In other words, they collect and deposit the polluted particles on the ground. This why the air is usually clearer after a rainy day.

Read More → "China could wash away smog with artificial rain storms from skyscrapers"

Jitish Kallat’s 2008 piece “Aquasaurus” is a massive replica water truck made to look like a great prehistoric leviathan’s skeleton, with great bowed ribs and enormous grinding teeth. It’s part of a series of pieces that includes a bone motorcycle as well. His work is currently displayed on the India stage at Art Stage Singapore.
via Boing Boing </ … Read More → "Vehicles as dinosaur skeletons"

Also known as the Sensitive plant (or, as I’m calling it, the NOPE plant), the Mimosa thinks every touch is a bad touch, and curls up its leaves whenever it experiences even the gentlest of pokes. Dr. Monica Gagliano and her colleagues from the University of Western Australia decided to treat the Mimosa like an animal, and see if it had short- or long-term memory for what constitutes a … Read More → "A plant that can learn and remember things just as well as animals can"

A falcon-like bird was unwittingly turned into a documentary filmmaker during its trip for lunch. At a rockhopper penguin colony, a striated caracara thought it had caught a break when it located the one remaining egg that hadn’t been hatched — but it turns out, the egg hadn’t hatched for good reason: it was a camera in disguise. After a short … Read More → "Bird steals camera, films gorgeous aerial footage of penguin colony"

The Nest thermostat, a well-arranged assemblage of glass and aluminum, isn’t all that hard to copy — or at least approximate.

Just ask the team at Spark, which built its own, understandably less pretty version of Nest’s thermostat — as well as its underlying software — in less than a day.

The prototype features just about the same array of features as Nest’ … Read More → "These guys built their own open-source Nest thermostat alternative in less than a day"

Yesterday Google released Music Timeline, a fascinating interactive visualization that traces the popularity of music over the past 60 years. The visualization can show a comparison of major music genres or you can narrow the focus to an individual genre, subgenre, or even a particular band.
via Laughing Squid

Read More → "Music timeline traces the popularity of music over the past 60 years"

After a heart attack has occurred, inflammatory cells known as monocytes rush to the damaged tissue. This causes the heart to swell, reducing its ability to pump blood, and further damaging the tissue – a potentially lethal situation. Now, however, scientists have discovered that injectable microparticles can help stop that from happening.

Developed in a collaboration between Illinois’ Northwestern University and the University of Sydney in Australia, the 500-nanometer-wide particles are made from a … Read More → "Injected microparticles shown to greatly reduce heart attack damage"