Fujifilm is getting into the art forging trade. The company has partnered up with the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam to create three-dimensional replicas of the artist’s most famous pieces. It’s accomplished through a process called Reliefography, which Fujifilm says is the result of seven years worth of research and development. What it has come up with is stunning; by combining a 3D … Read More → "Fujifilm partners with Van Gogh museum to create near-perfect, 3D art replicas"

xkcd: Questions Found in Google Autocomplete

Higher res version here

This is a news report from the BBC about scientists tracking snail movement using LEDs taped to their shells. The scientists discovered snails were able to move, on average, about one meter an hour…

They were also able to see how many of them followed the slime trails of other snails, saving energy in the process.

The discovery was part of … Read More → "Go go go go!: Time lapse of snails wearing LEDs (video)"

The way people with schizophrenia interpret their own hallucinations has changed over the course of the 20th century, keeping pace with changes in technology. Where people once believed that demons were speaking to them, they came to think of those voices as emanating from secret phonographs. Today, people with schizophrenia are likely to imagine hidden cameras taping them for a reality show. The paranoid delusions are always there, but the context changes.
via Boing Boing</ … Read More → "Today’s schizophrenics hallucinate different things than those of your grandparents’ time"

If you’ve ever struggled to get the cool breeze from a wall-mounted air conditioner aimed exactly where you need it, you’ll want to earmark some cash for Mitsubishi this November. That’s when the company will be releasing its new Z Series Kirigamine air conditioners, featuring an infra-red camera that can detect and automatically target the warmest parts of your … Read More → "This air conditioner uses Predator-vision for targeted coolings"

New research demonstrates that triggering an out-of-body experience (OBE) could be as simple as getting a person to watch a video of themselves with their heartbeat projected onto it. According to the study, it’s easy to trick the mind into thinking it belongs to an external body and manipulate a person’s self-consciousness by externalizing the body’s internal rhythms. The findings could lead to new treatments for people with perceptual disorders such as anorexia and could also help dieters too.
via Gizmag</ … Read More → "Synchronized virtual reality heartbeat triggers out-of-body experiences"

Japanese designer Yuri Suzuki created “Looks Like Music” based on a previous project, “Colour Chaser“. The new work translates colorful markings, added by the artist or viewers, into sounds that have different timbres, volumes, and pitches. Visitors can add to the black circuits the robots are following or add color to … Read More → "Little robots turn marker squiggles into sound (video)"

… Read More → "Polybius, a song played on old hard drives and video game consoles (video)"

Bulgarian archaeologists have just discovered a medieval bronze ring explicitly designed to poison political foes—in the most discreet way possible.

Unearthed in northeast Bulgaria at the site of a former medieval fortress in Cape Kaliakra, the now heavily corroded ring is topped off with a hollow cartridge, … Read More → "This 700-year-old ring was used to poison kings"

Snell-Rood is one of many researchers who have updated the conventional narrative of urban animals, in which city life favors a few tough, adaptable jack-of-all-trades — hello, crows! — and those species fortunate enough to have found a built environment similar to their native niches, such as the formerly cliff-dwelling rock doves we now call pigeons and find perched on building ledges everywhere.

The long view, though, is rather more … Read More → "How city living is reshaping the brains and behavior of urban animals"