As an assignment, Professor Daniel Fletcher of the University of California at Berkeley instructed students to build a functional microscope from a cell phone and a few lenses. When they completed the project, Fletcher and his students realized that they had a useful product, which they named the Cellscope. They hope to use the instrument in impoverished areas of the world where malaria, sickle-cell anemia, and tuberculosis are widespread. In such places, large numbers of microscopes are necessary for diagnosis, but remain very expensive. The Cellscope can be a cheaper alternative to fit this need.

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The Schweeb is an experimental transit system in New Zealand that combines the bicycle and a monorail track. Users lie down individual pods and work the pedals to move forward:

Our proposal to get you safely and quickly from one point in the city to another would be to elevate you onto a network of interconnected monorails where you never have to stop at traffic lights. The ideal vehicle for such a system already exists. Fully faired recumbent cycles, because of their low aerodynamic resistance, are breaking all bicycle speed records and currently reaching speeds of 90 kph (56 mph) in sprints. Suspending these comfortable and highly efficient machines from monorail tracks has the added advantage of taking away the rolling resistance of pneumatic tyres. Trains of Shweebs can further reduce the aero drag – ten people travelling at 40 kph will each have a lot less work to do than a single rider at the same speed. A single rider requires only a fraction of the energy to achieve the same speed as a normal cyclist – thanks to the significant reductions in both aero drag and tire friction. The vehicle is completely weatherproof, you can't derail or fall out while on the cellphone or blackberry!

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A biotech company named InSightec is developing a surgical technique that uses focused ultrasound waves instead of scalpels to destroy tumors:

Machinery like this had previously been used to treat some cancers, for example in the uterus and breast. But until now, the distorting effects brought about by the skull's thickness has made it impossibly tricky to focus the beams onto the brain while also maintaining the required accuracy.

InSightec's technology solves that by using over a thousand individually focused transducers, which broadcast the ultrasonic beams. But it's not like shooting a laser into a person's head--rather, the beams raise the temperature of the location being treated by about forty degrees, or just enough to kill the diseased cells. A built-in cooling system keeps the brain from cooking like an egg overheating.

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Artist Thomas Thwaites is trying to build a toaster from scratch from the original raw materials -- which he mined himself. Here is a video about his efforts to smelt iron ore at home. He's doing so as a reflection upon a line from Douglas Adams' novel Mostly Harmless: "Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it."

Link via Ace of Spades

Official Website

Can a dramatic prairie dog be fine art? If you're looking for squirrels in underpants or zombies in romantic moonlight, then this oil painting and others like it are for you. They're availabe at McPhee. I can't find a general directory of these meme-themed works, but if you look at the related products section at the link, you'll find more more like it.

Link via Nerd Approved

Fast Company has a slideshow of unusual buildings in which people live or work, using unique materials or shapes. These include high-grade bricks made from cow dung, a house made from hemp (pictured), a building made from shipping containers, and one designed like a concert hall.

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Researchers are Carnegie Mellon University are developing touchscreens that are textured to provide a variety of different shapes for users to interact with. If I understand this video correctly, this is more than just a shaped screen. The buttons on a single screen can actually change shape to present different types of interfaces. This technology could be very useful for the visually-impaired or people who want to use a machine while looking at something else.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-07/your-next-touchscreen-might-come-inflatable-buttons

VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies, a biotech start-up, has developed a tiny telescope that has can implanted into the eyes of people suffering from macular degeration:

Last week, an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended that the agency approve the implant. Clinical trials of the device, which is about the size of a pencil eraser, suggest it can improve vision by about three and a half lines on an eye chart...Once inside the eye, it works like a fixed telephoto lens, acting in conjunction with the cornea to project a magnified image of whatever the wearer is looking at over a large part of the retina. Because only the central parts of the retina are damaged in the disease, magnifying the image on the eye allows the retinal cells outside the macula to detect the object and send that information to the brain.

Link via The Presurfer

Matt Neary of Fargo, North Dakota found that a thief had stolen CDs and his wallet out of his truck -- but he did leave a pleasant note complimenting Neary's taste in music:

You have amazing taste in music.
Don't worry about your credit cards and diver's license -- I know I can't use them...after tonight, at least.

Seriously though
Lock your car in the future

http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_video.asp?news=32159 (local news video) via Nothing To Do With Arbroath

When one of the two toilets on the International Space Station broke, io9 blogger Lauren Davis was inspired to write about the toilets (or utter lack thereof) in various science fiction movies, TV shows, and books.  She rounds up the commodes from Star Trek, Lexx, Babylon 5, Galaxy Quest, Firefly, and others.

Apparently on the Enterprise-D, there was only one toilet, and the post includes a video of Jonathan Frakes pointing it out on a schematic of the ship.

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image by flickr user Richard Freedman used under creative commons license

NASA has created a map of Aldrin and Armstrong's journeys on the surface of the moon to the scale of a baseball diamond. It helps put their activities at the landing site in perspective. Also, we know "Who's on first?" It was Buzz Aldrin.

Link via Popular Science

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This start-up proposes to use robots to carve the lunar surface dust into patterns that could serve as advertisements. I'm skeptical due to the sheer scale of the task -- the number of robots necessary over a very long period of time. Still, people said that we'd never have bacon flavored vodka, but scientists and engineers overcame the obstacles. Anyway, we know from an episode of The Tick that it can be done.

Link via Popular Science

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Captain Alpha Male is a new webseries written by and starring Jay L. Lutsky.  It's about a man who works in middle management at a superhero agency; like a cross between The Office and Justice League.  This is the first episode.

Link via io9

Competing a grueling marathon isn't challenging enough for some runners.  Woman's Day has a list of ten marathons, some of them run under brutal conditions.  The picture above is from Greenland's marathon.  Others featured include a marathon run up and down the steps of the Great Wall of China, one that starts at 17,000 feet above sea level, and another run at the Dead Sea.

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Health/Fitness-Exercise/10-Extreme-Marathons.html via The Presurfer

When I was six, my mother sewed a piece of velcro on an old blue towel.  That was my Batman outfit.  This is better: a functional set of motorcycle leathers modeled after the Batsuit in the movie The Dark Knight.  Put one on, hop on your Vespa, and relish the attention.  Because nothing impresses people better than wearing a superhero costume.

http://www.universaldesigns.ca/UDR/ID/IDjacket.html via Geekologie