The Future hasn't yet made good on that promise of hoverboards, but we do now have the capability to create new blood vessels quickly, thanks to 3D printing and some innovative techniques. It seems 3D printers, while great for making custom 20-sided dice and tiny companion cubes, is good for more than just churning out knick-knacks. 

Nanoengineering professor Stephen Chen and his colleagues have figured out a way to print biological materials like blood vessels in mere seconds. The new process is called Dynamic Optical Projection Stereolithography, or DOPsL, and it actually works a bit like 3D sculpting. Unlike previous techniques of printing blood vessels which required a sugar-based scaffold to be printed first and then covered in stem cells layer-by-layer, this new approach takes a solution of photo-sensitive biopolymers and cells that scientists zap with a laser. When the light hits the cells, they harden, and in a matter of seconds, a form emerges.

For more about 3D printing's current capabilities, including the new vessel-printing technique, check out the rest on Motherboard. Link | Image UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering

This is Tuxedo Stan, and if you're a resident of Halifax, Nova Scotia, he'd like to be your mayor. Stanis the sole member of the single-issue Tuxedo Party, which just wants to makesure life in Halifax is as great for all cats as it is for Stan. Or at least comfortable, if international fame isn't feasible for every feline in the city.

Stan, who’s running on the ticket of the Tuxedo Party, is a one-issue cat.  ”The Tuxedo Party is a political movement aimed to improve the welfare of felines in [Halifax] because neglect isn’t working,” reads the party’s official platform.

At this point, Stan would be considered a longshot. Not only does he trail in the polls, but municipal laws appear to ban animals from holding office. But that’s OK, since the impetus of his campaign is mainly to raise awareness of Halifax’s stray cat problem.

Stan isn't the first animal to run for office, of course, but he is currently the one with the Facebook page that posts the best photos. Link

From the This Is Probably a Bad Idea files, here is a collection of Fifty Shades of Grey tie-in products that maybe should have been considered more carefully before actually hitting production. From onesies of questionable taste to seemingly themed cooking classes (what??), here they are. (SFW unless you're just not allowed to be online at work.) Link | Image

They're so cute when they're too small to maul you to death. According to The FW, YouTube user pennywhelan took the footage in her backyard. It's not terribly uncommon — if you live in the right area — but it never hurts to add another video of baby animals doing something adorable to the internet. Link

Death rays and high tech weapons were popular fixtures in popular fiction of the 20s and 30s, but it turns out they were also on the minds of scientists at the time, too, who strove to recreate some of scifi's most devastating weapons right here on Earth. Thanks to the PopSci archives, we can look back and laugh at the silly death rays that almost were (especially since, in the end, they weren't). And, of course:

"[I]t's not all doom and gloom. Sometimes the rays rained death upon germs, or cancer. And one brave soul realized that the horrible power of a death ray was too much to entrust a human to wield, so he vowed never to reveal its secret, for the good of mankind."

Link | Photo

Just like movie buffs and bookworms, avid gamers have favorite memorable quotes that only others with shared interests will recognize. And though I disagree that number one on this list is more memorable than number five ("You have died of dysentery," from Oregon Trail), it is a good cross-section of notable gaming quotables. (Bonus points for Bad Dudes appearance.) Link

David Leblanc, Action Abstraction No. 17: "...Unbound!"

As a boy, like many others, artist David Leblanc was fascinated with comics. When he was older and studying art at UMass/Dartmouth, he began incorporating Action Comics covers into his large-scale abstract works.

After struggling for many years with how to integrate this boyhood passion in to my paintings, I stumbled upon a book comprised of Action Comics covers featuring Superman from the 1930’s and 1940’s. The book became the inspiration for my signature Action series combining the elements of Abstract Expressionism and the Pop Art elements of comic books.

Now he sells his awesome comics-inspired art through Action Abstraction Studio, home of works like the one shown above and manymore acrylic enamel works, mostof which are at least 4 feet tall. Galleries -via Facebook 

(h/t Stephan Anstey)

True story: One of my friends was once interviewed by the local news during a Black Friday shopping spree. The caption under her name simply read "Woman," which we laughed about for a few minutes and I never remembered until I came across this post. It seems local news interviewees are often labeled unflatteringly, as evidenced by this huge collection on Warming Glow. Link

You're in a movie. Your phone rings. And just as you get to the part of the conversation where you explain that you're at the movies and it's totally rude to talk on your phone right now, a ninja comes to shut you up. Granted, the "ninja" is just a volunteer wearing a bodysuit who gets paid in free admission, and this particular scenario will only happen in one theater in London. But we're kind of hoping it catches on. Link -via Newser | Photo via Slashfilm

Zeus is 44 inches tall, just like my 7-year-old. But Zeus is only three, and standing on his hind legs, measures 7 feet 4 inches tall. If there were an all-dog basketball league, Zeus would be Manute Bol. He edges out former record-holder Giant George by a single inch, but the 12 cups of food he eats each day will probably help him maintain his competitive advantage. Link

Americans, by global standards, have a pretty bland diet. We're traditionally unadventurous, at least when compared gastronomically to the rest of the world. Take, for instance, baby mice wine, shown above. Newborn mice are drowned in wine, which is said to impart restorative properties to the body. (Yours, not the mice's.) I wouldn't touch it except to throw it away, and I'm probably not alone. The worst part is that it may not be the scariest item in this list. Link | Photos: ohhellsnah, cracked, 13point7billion

Remember Moon Shoes, and how your mom wouldn't buy them for you no matter how clean you kept your room or how heavy the hints, not even for Christmas? I'm projecting here. I never had Moon Shoes, but I really, really wanted them. (Thanks, Mom.)  

Clearly I wasn't the only kid longing for the ability to jump really high without a trampoline, because Buzzfeed has a roundup of highly coveted (but not often recieved) toys fromthe 90s, and Moon Shoes clock in at #4. Check out the rest, and seriously: someone please tell me if I missed out on something great here. Because I feel like Moon Shoes could have changed my life. Link

Photo credit: Murray Close

“Just saying yes to this one thing could completely change my life, and I don’t know if it’s going to be for the better.” - Jennifer Lawrence on taking the role of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games.

Lawrence is hardly the first actor to consider turning down a big role. While it's hard to imagine some of our favorite movies without the actors who played the lead characters, it's not terribly uncommon for those actors to hesitate before signing the contracts. From Katniss to Holly Golightly, here are ten characters that were almost played by a different actor. Link

It's cheap, it's lightweight, and it runs on renewable energy. Best of all, it actually exists. 

Izhar Gafni has worked in a number of fields, but until recently, cardboard bike design wasn't one of them. Inspired by the cardboard canoe and inexpensive computer tech (like the Raspberry) that have made these items affordable for consumers all around the world and easy to manufacture, Gafni realized a bicycle that was easy to build, sturdy, and most importantly, made of renewable resources, was probably something the world needed. But it wasn't easy, as he attests. This short film documents the design's concept and early models through to final design, shown above. 

Manufacturing the bike will cost between $9 and $12 per unit, and $5 for a smaller children's version. Link -via

The journey through Physics can be a treacherous one filled with many setbacks. Thankfully, an enterprising soul decided to sit down in 1939 and draw up a map. The Map of Physics is a "a brief historical outline of the subject as will be of interest to physicists, students, laymen at large," which organizes the field's  many branches into rivers and tributaries. These are surrounded by towns named after important physicists, situated on the appropriate shorelines of their study's focus. Link -via The Big Picture

"Sleeping with the fishes" takes on a less sinister meaning thanks to a new bed design that places your head directly below a 650-gallon fish tank. For the low, low price of $11,500, you can rest easy knowing you don't have to purchase matching lamps, which are included. Despite the price and any claustrophobia or concerns about leaky seams you might have, the design is pretty awesome. And it's not even the weirdest or most expensive in this list, which includes a floating bed and one made of solid gold. Link 

Photo: Furnitureland South/Acrylic Tank Manufacturers

Screen tests offer an interesting look at actors before they fully "become" a character. As Alison Nastasi at Flavorwire puts it, "It’s a chance to see popular stars, who always appear so glamorously surefooted, build the framework for the movies that made them famous in a smaller, bare-bones setting." Indeed. Check out Ralph Macchio testing for Karate Kid, above, and click through for more classic hits like ET, Tootsie and Titanic. Link

If you saw the episode in question, then you know that the characters didn't bother counting it to find out. But this stack of money, shown above, has maximum and minimum values that can be determined by the estimated dimensions of the stack. Since the midseason finale, all kinds of people have tried their thumb at counting that cash without actually counting it. Cockeyed.com is no stranger to calculating quantities and volumes from images, and based on various angles from the Breaking Bad episode, this is their guess. And here, another estimate from Quora's Tom Cook. And finally, a roundup of guesses from TV.com. How much money do you think is there?

Image: Lewis Jacobs/AMC

You're looking at the Librería El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a 1920s theater in Argentina that has been converted into the fanciest bookstore in exsistence. The theater boxes now serve as quiet reading rooms, and as one of the busiest bookshops in the country, the selection is incredible. For more awesome bookstore built in spaces that used to serve very different purposes, check out the collection on Flavorwire. Link | Images

It could be worth as much as $100,000, but the 5.5-inch-by-9-inch Renoir painting purchased at a flea market cost less than $50 and came with a Paul Bunyan doll. The buyer liked the look of the frame and took it to an auction house to have it assessed. And that's when art experts realized that the tiny little oil could be Renoir's Paysage Bords de Seine, which has been missing since sometime after 1925. There's little doubt that the work is a forgery genuine. "You just see it and you know it’s right," said one art expert working at the Virgian auction house. Link

Who says a dropout can't lead the nation? Though 25 of our former and current 44 Commanders in Chief were practicing lawyers at some point before taking office, some others just didn't seal the deal, leaving law school before earning a degree. Business Insider has their stories, from Woodrow Wilson (shown here) to Harry S. Truman, plus one bonus almost-president. Link

Photo: Library of Congress 

Artist and professor Courtney Johnson uses a technique called "cliché-verre" to create her incredible cityscapes. It requires painting the scene on glass, then scanning and printing the work on photo paper, making a faux-photograph of sorts.

“Historically employed during times of change, cliché-verre serves as a bridge between the past and the future as we transition into the digital era, and also as we move from the era of landscape to the cityscape,” she writes. “The images in this series depict characters in our new global mythological system: cities.”

The entire Glass Cities collection, including cities from San Francisco (shown above) to Kuala Lumpur, is gorgeous. Check it out on Flavorwire. Link

These are quadrotors equipped with multicolor LEDs -- 49 of them, flying/dancing in unison. The show, called Cloud In the Network, took place at German art conference Ars Electronica. This is reportedly the largest number of synchronized drones in flight, and as Motherboard author Derek Mead notes, is probably "what the end of the world will look like, when Skynet finally launches the missiles." Link

If you aren't familiar with Bad Lip Reading, now is a great time to get current. Movie clips and commercials are dubbed with whatever words seem tomatch the speakers' mouths. And it's brilliant. This time, BLR tackles Bella and Edward's super-complicated romance, and as Buzzfeed rightfully notes, "it's still a better love story than Twilight." Link via Buzzfeed

The Bundys weren't exactly the Cleavers, but that's probably why we loved them so much. Though the show's 11 seasons ended in 1997 — before this year's high-school freshmen were even born — there are still plenty of interesting behind-the-scenes facts to divulge. From Ed O'Neill's secret talent to the show's original working title, Death+Taxes has the facts. Link

Barbara Millicent Roberts has weathered her share of bad press — impossible proportions, that nasty split from Ken, and of course, her sometimes questionable choice of clothing. But those little scandals hardly scrape the surface when you consider allegations of racism, abrief foray into cross-dressing (shown above, 'Drag Queen' Barbie), and her unwed, pregnant cousin. Check out some of Barbie's most controversial incarnations. Link

What makes a rainforest? Millions of things, living and dead and inanimate, but perhaps most importantly of all, rain. Rain, obviously, comes from clouds, and clouds come from.... fungi? Maybe so, according to an essay in TIME based on research published recently in the journal Science, which explores the intricate relationship between a rainforests's unique weather and the flora and fauna that rely on it.

When you mess with the Amazon rainforest you mess with a lot of things — 2.5 million species of insects, 40,000 species of plants, 1,300 species of birds, and those are only the known ones. The 1.4 billion of acres of thriving, sprawling biology that cover the Amazon help drive the very metabolism of a continent. And now it appears that the rainforest is at least partly responsible for something else: the Amazonian clouds themselves. Clear-cut the land and you could, in effect, clear-cut the sky.

More about the tenuous link between land and sky, on TIME. Link

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It's common among book fiends to remember the opening lines of favorite novels, and likewise it's a trend among TV fanatics to reminisce on final scenes from well-loved shows. From Six Feet Under (shown above) to Life on Mars, with stops along the way for The Sopranos and MST3K, Flavorwire rounded up their favorite closing scenes from 20 pop culture favorites. Link

Archaelogists announced today that they believe they have uncovered the site of King Richard III's grave, inside a long-lost friary buried beneath the Leicester City Council offices. 

The hunt for King Richard III's grave is heating up, with archaeologists announcing today (Sept. 5) that they have located the church where the king was buried in 1485.

"The discoveries so far leave us in no doubt that we are on the site of Leicester's Franciscan Friary, meaning we have crossed the first significant hurdle of the investigation," Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the dig, said in a statement.

The dig is located in a parking lot in Leicester, England, which covered the church believed to house the body of King Richard III since 1485. The church was lost to history and only recently tracked down by Buckley's team. Link

Is there anything cooler than super-secret spy tech? Maybe, but you can bet that it's even more super-secret than your clearance allows. These, however, are gadgets we know exist, and they're used by people who would tell you all about it, but then they'd have to kill you.

Spies gather information by watching, listening, and waiting. Eavesdropping is what spies do best. Is it any wonder, then, that three of these clever devices are for espionage? And in case things get messy, sometimes an agent needs a way to take out a target that's less direct than an abduction or assassination.

From The Great Seal Bug to anti-tank canine soldiers, check out Tecca's collection of amazing spy tricks, tactics, and trappings: Link