It’s kinda great to picture Anthony Hopkins bingeing out for two weeks solid to watch the entire series…

Anthony Hopkins wasn’t a Breaking Bad fan until just a few weeks ago, but after a marathon session bringing him from episode one through the series’ conclusion, he’s become simply stunned by it. “Your … Read More → "Anthony Hopkins says Bryan Cranston’s acting in Breaking Bad is the best he’s ever seen"

Computer technology still lags far behind the abilities of the human brain, which has billions of neurons that help us simultaneously process a plethora of stimuli from our many senses. But Qualcomm hopes to shrink that bridge with a new type of computer architecture modeled after the brain, which would be able to learn new skills and react to inputs without needing a human to … Read More → "Qualcomm builds learning computer chip inspired by human brain"

Set to be located within the mountainous outskirts of Kazakhstan’s largest city (and until 1997, its capital) Almaty, Tree in the house has been designed for two people. Essentially a simple cylindrical glass shape with four floors and a spiral staircase, the house will feature a tree running right through the center, and will shun privacy in favor of a stunning view.
via Read More → "Tree in the house shuns privacy in favor of a great view"

In a solar system over 100 light years from Earth, researchers have spotted one of the building blocks of life-sustaining planets. That building block may not sound like much: just a single asteroid containing a lot of water. But it’s this same type of asteroid that may have brought water to earth when it was first being formed. And this marks the first time that … Read More → "A distant solar system had the ingredients to support life, study finds"

Music researcher Chris Chafe and neurologist Josef Parvizi, both of Stanford University, have collaborated to turn the data from an EEG into audio signals with a device called a “brain stethoscope.”
via Neatorama

… Read More → "Listen to the music of a brain seizure"

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have figured out how to make structures – like houses or cages – that are small enough to corral bacterial cells. The enclosures can be built in any shape and are 3-D printed using a modified laser, the team reported Oct. 7 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

… Read More → "Scientists 3-D print tiny cages that imprison bacteria"

Over at Scientific American, Jason Goldman writes about a sure-fire way that biologists doing field work in the Amazon have found to lure big cats, like jaguars, to “camera traps” where they capture photos like the one above. Men’s cologne. Specifically, Calvin Klein’s “Obsession.”.
via Boing Boing

Read More → "Jaguars lured to ‘camera traps’ with men’s cologne"

The simple pleasure of swinging is one that most of us probably haven’t enjoyed in years. At the historic Convento Das Dominicas n the Portuguese city of Guimarães—itself a Unesco World Heritage site—designers Cláudia Oliveira and Isabel Bourbon of creative studio Elas Duas gave visitors of all ages an … Read More → "This swing set is a cool musical instrument"

How well do you recognize color? Or, to put it another way, how well do you recognize brand colors? Blue is used so much in the internet, that Colin Gourlay constructed a quiz that asks you to identify shades of blue that are associated with these internet companies. The quiz never ends, as far as I know, but it keeps a running score.
via Read More → "Name that internet blue"

At a space industry conference last week, Russian officials announced that their version of Robonaut, the SAR-400, is currently undergoing testing at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre Research Institute, and will be making its way to the International Space Station (ISS) within just a few years.

In many ways, the SAR-400 is a lot like the NASA/GM Robonaut 2 that we’ve come to know and love. It’s … Read More → "Russian Robonaut to travel to space station within two years"