Yes, the new Xbox One is highly covetable for many reasons. But once you get past the games and the TV integration and the rumbling controllers, you finally land on what might be its most useful purpose: The world’s most sophisticated workout gadget.

The Xbox is already a decent workout aid; last year we spent some time playing with Nike+ Kinect Training& … Read More → "The Xbox One’s secret killer feature: getting you in shape"

Foc.us is a company that makes headsets for gamers. Those headsets, starting to ship in July, send electricity through your brain. This is their pitch:

Overclock your brain using transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to increase the plasticity of your brain. Make your synapses fire faster.

Faster Processor, Faster Graphics, Faster Brain!

If that sounds a little sketchy to … Read More → "Brain-stimulating headset with zap video gamers’ skulls to give them better reflexes"

NASA’s gotten in on the synthesized food action by awarding a $125,000 grant to Anjan Contractor, head of Systems & Materials Research Corporation, to develop a 3D food printer. The first device Contractor plans to build under the six-month grant is based on RepRap’s open-source hardware and will be designed to print a pizza comprised of three layers of nutritional powders mixed with water and oil. As the final frontier gets further and … Read More → "NASA funds 3D food printer, pizza is the first item on the menu"

In the photo series “Ricettario: A balanced diet,” recipes are visualized in precariously balanced arrangements of their various ingredients. The arrangements were created by Italian stylist and set designer Elena Mora. The photos were taken by Karsten Wegener< … Read More → "Ricettario, recipes visualized in precariously balanced arrangements of ingredients"

A group of Kansas City high school students and their mentors have electrified a Karmann Ghia, modifying it so that it will only run when it gets mentioned in social media. If that sounds like a publicity stunt, that’s because it is. And it’s for a good cause.

Minddrive has taken kids who have fallen through the cracks and developed an after-school programthat matches them with … Read More → "Electrified, student-built Karmann Ghia runs on tweets"

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A study showing how ants tunnel their way through confined spaces could aid the design of search-and-rescue robots, according to US scientists.

A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology found fire ants can use their antennae as “extra limbs” to catch themselves when they fall, and can build stable tunnels in loose sand.

Researchers used high speed cameras to record in detail this behaviour.
via < … Read More → "Ant studies to aid design of search and rescue robots"

Octopi are pro swimmers, thanks (at least in part) to that octet of arms they’ve got going on. They’ve adopted a particular swimming gait called sculling, which works great for them, but until they start publishing scientific papers, we’re missing out on all of their gait testing data. Roboticists have had to start from scratch, and along the way, they’ve experimented with some swimming gaits that we’ve& … Read More → "Robot octopus shows off new sculls (video)"

Unsightly underarm sweat patches could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new fabric developed at the University of California, Davis. Instead of simply soaking up sweat like conventional fabrics, the new fabric is threaded with tiny channels that pull the sweat from one side to the other where it forms into droplets that drain away.

The fabric grew out of microfluidics research in the UC Davis Micro-Nano Innovations Laboratory … Read More → "New fabric sucks out sweat and remains completely dry"

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