A group of West Coast tech entrepreneurs are so confident self-driving cars are the way of the future, they want to dedicate an entire highway lane to them. CBC News reports that Madrona Venture Group, which is made up of several high profile tech industry experts, recently released a report proposing that at least one lane of the I-5 highway connecting Seattle … Read More → "Driverless highway lane could eventually connect Vancouver and Seattle"

Doctors at Oxford University made medical history recently by successfully completing the first robot-assisted intraocular surgery. Robert MacLaren, Professor of Ophthalmology at the university, and his team managed to gently peel off a 1/1000th millimeter membrane from the inside of a patient’s eye. To do so, the team relied on a cutting-edge medical device known as the Robotic Retinal Dissection Device, or R2D2.
via Read More → "Robots can perform surgery inside your eyeballs"

In 2008, the Swiss/Danish design team Yarisal & Kublitz created their “Anger Release Machine,” a vending machine stocked with “crystal glasses, plates, porcelain, various items” (the catalog helpfully adds “70 x 77 x 182 cm”) — insert coin, shatter breakables, feel better.
via Boing Boing

< … Read More → "“Anger Release Machine”: a coin-op for shattering fine breakables"

When a car’s air conditioner is running, water vapor in the air accumulates on its condenser, changing into a liquid state and then dripping to the ground. Doug Martin, a powertrain controls engineer at Ford, didn’t like the idea of all that water being wasted. That’s why he created a prototype system which collects that condensation, and repurposes it as drinking water within the car.</ … Read More → "Ford tech lets drivers drink from their air conditioners"

You can put a price on people’s access to nature, and for states, it’s a pretty good deal. A new study uses selfies taken on conserved lands, like state parks, to calculate more precise visitor rates than parks services typically record, finding that nature preserves provide a pretty good boost to the tourist economy, as Popular Science reports. 

< … Read More → "Selfies can calculate the monetary value of conservation, study finds"

A cow which had its face blurred by Google street view has proved a hit on social media.

The animal was snapped by Google’s cameras at Coe Fen, Cambridge, and seemingly given the same treatment humans receive for privacy reasons.
via BBC News

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A mammal needs fertilized egg cells to have children, right? Not so fast. University of Bath scientists report that they’re the first to successfully breed healthy mice without any fertilized eggs, instead relying on inactive embryos. The team first doused eggs in strontium chloride, which prevents them from going into a state of arrest while they’re turned into embryos — previous attempts to fool the eggs saw them die within … Read More → "Researchers produce healthy mice without using fertilized eggs"

If you’re a longtime reader, you’ll know that I love me some impractical timepieces; the LED Word Clock qualifies, with a set of stencil-text cutouts of words that are selectively lit by LEDs to tell you the time(ish); it measures 8″ square and costs $74 and the major complaint from reviewers is that it is too bright, which strikes … Read More → "LED “clock” spells out the time in words"

From 3Der.org comes this story of some amazing materials research being done at Hasso-Plattner-Institute. The team has developed a way of designing and 3D printing non-powered objects that they consider machines.
via MAKE

… Read More → "“Metamaterials” allow you to 3D print simple machines"

City buses are already the more eco-friendly way of getting around compared to driving in a car. Many cities have begun switching over to hybrid vehicles or alternative fuels in an effort to make transit even more sustainable. And a new bus model might make the change from gas-powered vehicles even easier for city transportation authorities. Proterra’s latest electric bus … Read More → "A new electric bus could drive a full day of routes on a single charge"