The charms of the patent office archives—and the hilariously insane inventions they contain—are well-known. But is it possible that a few of those failed entrepreneurs were actually onto something? New York lawyer Martin Galese thinks so—and he’s resurrecting the ghosts of patents past … Read More → "One man is resurrecting forgotten patents of yore with 3D printing"
London-based graphic designer Alison Haigh has created a minimalist periodic table in which each element is represented by its chemical structure — each dot represents an electron — rather than its symbol and atomic weight.Prints of the unique periodic table can be ordered from Haigh’s … Read More → "Minimalist periodic table illustrates the chemical structures of elements"
Gasbot is a project from the AASS Research Centre at Orebro University in Sweden. It’s a Clearpath Robotics Husky A200 mobile robot (awarded for free through Clearpath’s Partner Program) equipped with a pair of laser scanners, a GPS, and a remote gas sensor. Specifically, we’re talking about a Tunable Laser (LASER!) Absorption Spectrometer, which provides integral concentration measurements of gasses over the path of the laser beam. All you … Read More → "Gasbot sniffs out climate destruction with lasers"
There’s plenty of good architecture photography around, but Carlos Ayesta has put quite a unique spin on his work. Ayesta’s “vertical architecture” photos are shot while scaling down the side of buildings in Paris, providing an unusual and striking close-up view of his subjects. Many of his images show both the intimate interiors of the building he’s scaling down as well as more … Read More → "Photographer rappels down skyscrapers to capture a unique view of Paris (video)"
Called EyeWire, the browser-based game asks players to map the connections between retinal neurons by coloring in 3-D slices of the brain. Much like any other game out there, being good at EyeWire earns you points, but the difference is that the data you produce during gameplay doesn’t just get you on a leader board—it’s actually used by scientists to build … Read More → "A videogame that recruits players to map the brain"
The Daler can fly through the air with grace, but the fun doesn’t stop when this remote-controlled robot lands.
The wings segment, and it clambers across the ground like an ungainly pterodactyl or bat.
Most robots only use one type of locomotion. They fly through the air (raining death from above, in the case of US military drones), swim through the seas, like the Sharkbot … Read More → "Pterodactyl-like bot “Daler” uses its wings for walking"
Soft robotics is a quickly emerging field that takes a lot of inspiration from marine creatures like squids and starfish. A light-controlled hydrogel was recently developed that could be used for control of these new robotic devices, but now researchers at North Carolina State University are taking the development of soft robotic devices to a new level with electrically-charged hydrogels.
The “ionoprinting” technique, as the team … Read More → "Electrically-charged hydrogel has applications for soft robotics and biomedical fields"
Randall Munroe’s web comic XKCD has long been known for pushing boundaries in strange ways, but his latest experiment topped them all. Over the course of four months, “Time” grew as a frame was added every 30 minutes or so, ending up with over 3,000 individual frames by the time it wrapped up earlier this week. Now that the epic comic has finally wrapped up, Munroe … Read More → "XKCD’s creator shares the secrets of ‘Time,’ his 3,900-frame comic"
