A sushi restaurant in London has taken that bold step forward by delivering its new rice burgers to sidewalk tables on trays carried by iPad-controlled quadrocopters.

The YO! Sushi chain’s SoHo location in central London promoted the release of its new ‘YO! Burger‘ — a rice bun filled with teriyaki chicken, tofu, prawn, or salmon — by unveiling a new way of serving their food. A video … Read More → "But what do you tip? Sushi restaurant brings in flying drones to wait tables (video)"

The US Supreme Court, in a nearly unanimous ruling (Scalia joined the majority, but only in part), has held that a piece of DNA that occurs naturally is not eligible for patenting. This means that any sequences that are normally present in the human genome—or that of any other organism—cannot be the subject of patent infringement.
via Ars … Read More → "Supreme Court blocks patenting of genomic DNA"

During World War II, the United Kingdom was facing some serious attacks from the sky, and to help minimize the damage done by the Luftwaffe, British engineer Guy Maunsell developed a clever strategy: take to the sea. Though now defunct, these incredible concrete monsters are still standing out at sea, impressive as ever.
via Gizmodo

… Read More → "Exploring the amazing abandoned sea forts of World War II (video)"

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the practice continued because messages were prepared for transmission by being typed or printed on a form that required an optical character recognition font which lacked lowercase letters. Even as messages moved fully into electronic production, the standard of having broadcast communication in all caps lived on, unhindered by progress. That’s because the Fleet Broadcast System’s message routing continued to rely on legacy systems that could only handle uppercase characters. Now that has changed with the introduction of a new message routing system based on cheaper, … Read More → "Navy ends century and a half of ALL-CAPS messages"

In 1971, this ferret played a key role in the construction of particle accelerators at Fermilab’s Meson Laboratory. As sections of vacuum chamber were connected together, Felicia would run through them, dragging a string. After she had carried the string all the way through, researchers would use the line to run a rag doused in cleaning solution through the long, narrow tubes.
via Read More → "Felicia, the Fermilab ferret"

Developed by three Czech companies working in unison, the bike was demoed for the first time in Prague today, where it underwent a remote-controlled five-minute flight. The 209-pound rig with its four battery-powered propeller pods isn’t quite capable of carrying around a real human being yet, so instead a dummy got the inaugural ride. Hope he enjoyed it.
via Gizmodo

</ … Read More → "Yep, that’s a helicopter bicycle (video)"

Researchers can now make a cat and a fish disappear from plain sight, so long as they’re looked at from the right angle. Last Friday, one of the first large-scale “invisibility cloaks” — devices that can hide objects from the human eye — was unveiled by a group of physicists from Zhejiang University in China, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and Boston and … Read More → "New invisibility cloak conceals cats and fish from up to six directions"

The Sonic Fabric Necktie is made out of recycled audio cassette tape and will actually play sound if placed on a tape head. The neckties are handcrafted in New York City out of Sonic Fabric, a material … Read More → "Sonic Fabric Necktie, woven audio tape necktie that actually plays (video)"

Tired of paying the ridiculous markup for brand-name computers, even ones you build yourself? Thanks to the miracle of 3D printing (miracle still being perfected) you can now print yourself an entire computer on the cheap—assuming you’ve got free access to a 3D printer, and don’t need anything more than a basic calculator.

The plans for  … Read More → "You can finally 3D print your own computer (kind of)"

China may be quick on the path to constructing the world’s newest tallest building ever, but should they succeed, their reign is probably going to be fairly short-lived—and all because of an elevator. More specifically, an elevator that can travel up to 1000 meters—two times higher than any built before it.
via Gizmodo

< … Read More → "New elevator tech will double how tall our highest buildings can be"