Forget the sleek aluminum case of the iPhone or the magnesium alloy used in HTC's smartphone. The new hot thing is metal made out of cement. That's right, cement:

In a move that would make the Alchemists of King Arthur's time green with envy, scientists have unraveled the formula for turning liquid cement into liquid metal. This makes cement a semi-conductor and opens up its use in the profitable consumer electronics marketplace for thin films, protective coatings, and computer chips. [...]

This change demonstrates a unique way to make metallic-glass material, which has positive attributes including better resistance to corrosion than traditional metal, less brittleness than traditional glass, conductivity, low energy loss in magnetic fields, and fluidity for ease of processing and molding. Previously only metals have been able to transition to a metallic-glass form. Cement does this by a process called electron trapping, a phenomena only previously seen in ammonia solutions. Understanding how cement joined this exclusive club opens the possibility of turning other solid normally insulating materials into room-temperature semiconductors. [...]

The team of scientists studied mayenite, a component of alumina cement made of calcium and aluminum oxides. They melted it at temperatures of 2,000 degrees Celsius using an aerodynamic levitator with carbon dioxide laser beam heating. The material was processed in different atmospheres to control the way that oxygen bonds in the resulting glass.

Link

Take a look at your cereal box and you'll find that they have either one of the two closure methods shown above, slotted or slotless. But why? And which one is better?

Paul Lukas is coo-coo for cereal closures and told us everything we wanted to know about cereal boxes but were afraid to ask:

As for which format is best, every source agreed that the slotted style's tendency to rip and tear is highly annoying. Not only that, but several of the experts identified another important distinction: The slotless style requires less male/female overlap, so the flaps can be shorter. That saves cardboard — sorry, paperboard — which translates to lower costs, greater sustainability, lighter shipping loads, and so on.

So with the slotless design appearing to offer superior functionality and greater efficiencies, why would anyone stick with the slotted format? "Some people think the slotless version feels less secure, because there's less overlap and less of a lock," said Pat Shields, Director of Structural Design at the box manufacturer Rock Tenn. (He also added, "When the slot rips, at least it gives you an outlet for expletives. Hey, we're there to serve.") And Lisa McTigue Pierce, Executive Editor of the trade magazine Packaging Digest, said, "For flour-based products, maybe the larger overlap could help prevent insect infestation."

So that's what the slotted style has going for it: It offers a false sense of security, gives you an excuse to cuss, and maybe keeps the bugs out.

Read the rest over at New Republic: Link

Canada's new 100 dollar banknote, made of polymer, is indestructible and nearly impossible to duplicate. But that's not the best thing about it: according to many people, it smells like maple syrup!

Dozens of people who contacted the bank in the months after the polymer notes first appeared asked about a secret scratch-and-sniff patch that apparently smells like maple syrup.

“I would like to know … once and for all if these bills are in fact scented, as I do detect a hint of maple when smelling the bill,” says a typical email from a perplexed citizen.

Said another: “They all have a scent which I’d say smells like maple? Please advise if this is normal?”

The Bank of Canada denied the whole thing, of course, but I think that's a great feature. Let's petition the US Federal Reserve to release bacon-scented banknotes!

Link (Image: CTVVI)

Well, climbing Mount Everest ain't what it used to be. Sixty years after Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Sir George's mountain, there are so many people waiting in line to reach the top that there's now a plan to install a ladder there:

"We are now discussing putting a ladder on the Hillary Step but it is obviously controversial," said Dawa Steven Sherpa, who runs commercial expeditions on Everest and is a senior member of the Expedition Operators Association in Nepal.

This year, 520 climbers have reached the summit of Everest. On 19 May, around 150 climbed the last 3,000ft of the peak from Camp IV within hours of each other, causing lengthy delays as mountaineers queued to descend or ascend harder sections.

"Most of the traffic jams are at the Hillary Step because only one person can go up or down. If you have people waiting two, three or even four hours that means lots of exposure [to risk]. To make the climbing easier, that would be wrong. But this is a safety feature," said Sherpa ...

I think I'll wait till they install an escalator.

Jason Burke of The Guardian has the story: Link

Sit down and relax. There's no hurry to finish your coffee at the Slow Time Cafe - you can stay as long as you'd like without the cafe staff glaring at you for taking up valuable seats. Heck, you can even bring your own food.

The catch? You have to pay by the minute:

Customers are charged €0.05 per minute, amounting to €3.00 an hour. When they come in the door, [cafe owner] Volkova gives them a wristband with the time marked on it. When they leave they hand it back and their bill is calculated to the minute.

Link - via Arbroath

High jump mattress? What's that? THIS IS KENYA where high school ninjas jump over a bar set taller than a man's height like it was just a small hop.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

Daft Nuts by Baznet

Musicians don't dance, but they do play a music harder, better, faster, stronger than the rest of us. T-shirt designer Baznet is doin' it right with this mash up tee. Check out his latest T-shirt design over at the NeatoShop and who knows, perhaps you'll get lucky and lose yourself to dance: Link

Visit Baznet at his Tumblr for more neat-o T-shirt designs, then buy one for yourself or loved one over at his NeatoShop page.

Super Daft Bros	Rancor Pit	Bat Country	Super Doctor Who

View more of Baznet's T-shirts | More Funny T-shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

What's life like when your father is "The Smartest Man in the World" and has a Nobel Prize to prove it? Michelle Feynman, daughter of the famous physicist Richard Feyman, tells us:

When I was very young, I thought my father knew everything. Indeed, a prominent magazine once declared him “The Smartest Man in the World.” Upon hearing this, his mother threw up her hands and exclaimed, “If Richard is the smartest man in the world, God help the world!” My father was the first one to laugh. [...]

Despite his success, my father encouraged an irreverent attitude toward himself. Our dinner conversations were full of tales about mistakes he made during the day: losing his sweater, having conversations with people and not remembering their names. On Sunday mornings, he would often forgo reading the newspaper in favor of a wild hour of loud, often discordant music, drumming, and storytelling with my brother and me. When it was his turn to drive the car pool to elementary school, he would pretend to get lost. “No, not that way!” all the kids would scream. “Oh, all right. Is it this way?” and he would turn the wrong way again. “Nooooooo!” we would yell in utter panic.

Read the rest over at Discover Magazine: Link

In 2007, photographer John Maloof went to an auction house across the street from his Chicago home and bought a box of undeveloped film that had been abandoned in a storage locker. When he developed the negatives, he discovered that they contained a photographic gold mine left by a mysterious woman named Vivian Maier.

Vivian Maier - completely unknown at the time - had left a body of work comprising of more than 2,000 rolls of film, 3,000 printed photographs and 150,000 negatives, representing the photos she took from the 40s through the 70s. She took candid pictures of people, street life, and buildings in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, the American Southwest, and places as fara way as Manila, Bangkok, Beijing, Egypt and Italy.

But who was Vivian Maier? Maloof spent years reconstructing her work and life - and when he finally found her identity, Vivian died only days before he could reach her.

But in death, the very private Vivian Maier (friends have likened her to Mary Poppins - Maier was a nanny) has found fame. Thanks to Maloof, her work has found new fans from published books and exhibitions across the United States - and finally, a documentary is in the works.

Take a look at the trailer above, then view a selection of Maier's photographs over at the official website: Link | Finding Vivian Maier documentary official website

A few of her photographs of New York:

Undated, New York, NY

September, 1953, New York, NY

By simply manipulating chemical gradients in a beaker of fluid, Wim L. Noorduin [...] has found that he can control the growth behavior of these crystals to create precisely tailored structures. [...] To create the flower structures, Noorduin and his colleagues dissolve barium chloride (a salt) and sodium silicate (also known as waterglass) into a beaker of water. Carbon dioxide from air naturally dissolves in the water, setting off a reaction which precipitates barium carbonate crystals. As a byproduct, it also lowers the pH of the solution immediately surrounding the crystals, which then triggers a reaction with the dissolved waterglass. This second reaction adds a layer of silica to the growing structures, uses up the acid from the solution, and allows the formation of barium carbonate crystals to continue.

This is mesmerizing: For their art installation Sonic Water, Sven Meyer of Elfenmaschine and Kim Pörksen of Piece of Cake, put a cap of water on a vibrating plate on top of a loudspeaker. The result is a gorgeous music visualization based on cymatics (or the study of visible sound and vibrations).

Give me a ping, Beckerman. One ping only, please.

Many high school students are planning to lounge around the lake this summer, but not Mendham High School, New Jersey, student Justin Beckerman. The 18-year old teen will be doing the final testing of his one-man DIY submarine, made from drainage pipe:

Co-existing with Jet Skis and fishing boats in the picturesque West Jersey lake is Justin’s latest invention — complete with lights, paddles, ballasts, air compressors, 2,000 feet of wire and a Plexiglas dome top that looks like the head of Star Wars robot R2-D2.

Justin, who turned 18 last weekend, spent a month designing and five months building his 9-foot-long submarine, into which he can fit.

Mike Frassinelli of The Star-Ledger has the story: Link - via Gizmodo (Photos: Saed Hindash/The Star-Ledger)

Stylish and bullet proof! What's not to like?

This new blue dress by Japanese company Spiber is woven from synthetic spider silk, which is five times stronger than steel, more flexible than nylon, and is extremely lightweight.

The electric-blue dress was created from a material Spiber calls Qmonos (from kumonosu, or "spider web," in Japanese). [...]

The high-collared cocktail dress, on display at the Roppongi Hills complex in Tokyo, was created to demonstrate the technology behind Qmonos.

The territorial nature of spiders makes them difficult to farm like silkworms. So instead, Spiber developed a technology that uses synthesized genes and coaxes bacteria to produce fibroin, the structural protein in spider silk. Spiber then uses technology it developed to culture the microbes efficiently and weave the fibroin into fabric.

Apart from clothing, Qmonos could potentially be be used to make film, gels, sponges, artificial blood vessels, and nanofibers.

Tim Hornyak of CNET has the scoop: Link

Time to panic! A new SARS-like virus found in human has all the potential to cause a global pandemic. Meet the novel Coronavirus (nCOV or MERS-CoV) - and yes, it's transmissible from human to human:

A new SARS-like virus recently found in humans is "a threat to the entire world," according to the director-general of the United Nations' World Health Organization.

The so-called novel coronavirus "is not a problem that any single affected country can keep to itself or manage all by itself," Margaret Chan said Monday in her closing remarks at the 66th World Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.

"We do not know where the virus hides in nature. We do not know how people are getting infected. Until we answer these questions, we are empty-handed when it comes to prevention. These are alarm bells. And we must respond," she said.

CNN has the post: Link

Like Madagascar said, SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!

This place has got lots of donuts and croissants, but it's a fight to the DEATH for that one bagel! Via Neatorama Facebook page, where you'll find even more neat stuff daily!