The Stemie is a a rubber device that slips over a bicycle's handlebar stem. If a rider crashes and flies over the handlebars, the Stemie is designed to prevent painful impacts to the groin.

Link via CrunchGear | Photo: Sorachief Design

Robots usually aren't supposed to hurt people. But how does a robot know if its actions injure a human? The only way is for the robot to learn how much physical pressure the human body can comfortably endure. So Borut Povše, a researcher at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia had a robot punch people to find out:

Each volunteer was struck 18 times at different impact energies, with the robot arm fitted with one of two tools - one blunt and round, and one sharper.

The volunteers were then asked to judge, for each tool type, whether the collision was painless, or engendered mild, moderate, horrible or unbearable pain. Povše, who tried the system before his volunteers, says most judged the pain was in the mild to moderate range.

Link via Gizmodo | Photo: B.Povse, D. Koritnik, T Bajd, M Munih

Temujin Doran is an illustrator based in London. He created an advertising portfolio for LEGO by superimposing LEGO pieces and minifigs over real life. You can view six more examples at the link.

Link | Artist's Website

The producers of The Simpsons arranged for the British street artist Banksy to write the "couch gag" that takes place in the introduction to The Simpsons. But how did they manage to get in contact with this elusive, mysterious artist? David Itzkoff of The New York Times interviewed executive producer Al Jean:

I saw the film Banksy directed, “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” and I thought, oh, we should see if he would do a main title for the show, a couch gag. So I asked Bonnie Pietila, our casting director, if she could locate him, because she had previously located people like Thomas Pynchon. And she did it through the producers of that film. We didn’t have any agenda. We said, “We’d like to see if you would do a couch gag.” So he sent back boards for pretty much what you saw.

Jean also verified that he's sure that he was dealing with the real Banksy, and not an imposter:

The original boards that we got from him were in his style and were certainly by an extremely proficient artist. We were dealing with the person that represented him making the movie. I haven’t met him, I don’t even know what he looks like, except what the Internet suggests. And he’s taken credit for it now so I’m pretty sure it’s him. We went through the people that made the movie so I assume they would know how to get to the real him.

Link via Super Punch | Image: Fox

Stephen Von Worley created the above map of all McDonald's locations in the 48 contiguous states. A spot in northwestern Nevada is the most McDonald's-free on the map. It's the McFarthest spot (to use Von Worley's term) at 115 miles to the nearest McDonald's restaurant. You can read about Von Worley's discovery here, or about his subsequent pilgrimage to that location here. Von Worley brought McDonald's food with him.

via Ace of Spades HQ

Previously about Stephen Von Worley:
Infographic on Burger Chain Dominance
Crayola's Law

Dog bites man, right?

The patient arrived at the Friendship Heights hospital slack-jawed and glassy-eyed.

"He was very twitchy," reports Nicola Moore, the physician who admitted him. "His pupils were dilated. When he walked, he looked . . . " Well, he looked stoned.

The caretaker who accompanied him to the hospital was concerned. Her charge had been completely listless for hours, ever since lunchtime when, as was his custom, he'd gone out to urinate on the lawn.

Senator is pictured above. He accidentally ate marijuana.

Link via The Agitator (who wrote the headline) | Photo: Katherine Frey/the Washington Post)

(Video Link)

Brad Litwin makes whimsical paper engines and gadgets out of paper. They fold into compact boxes and can be mailed as greeting cards. The above video shows several such MechaniCards.

Link via Make

Andrea Newberry made deviled eggs that look like the eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings movies. The pupils are made with olives. You can read her recipe at the link.

Link via Nerdcore | Images: New Line Cinema, Forkable

Previously: Eye of Sauron, Made with Tesla Coils

Evgeniy Grigoriev created a record-breaking 10 mm Rubik's Cube. The previous record was a cube measuring 12 mm across. It's fully functional, and you can watch a video of it being solved.

Link and Video via Gizmodo | Photo: Twisty Puzzles

(Video Link)

ING Direct, a bank, wanted ads that would grab the attention of passersby and interact with them. So the ad agency Leo Burnett in Milan hired people to hang from billboards or other conventional ad placements and talk to potential customers about the company's services. At the link, you can view three other examples.

Link via The Presurfer

Polish photographer Jan Kriwol likes to suggest that outward reality is just a facade. At the link, you can view several examples of his work that exhibit this theme.

http://illusion.scene360.com/photography/12537/unreal-environments/ via io9 | Photographer's Website

The first of the 33 trapped miners in Chile came to the surface during the night. The rescue process is slowly underway. Retrieving these men from half a mile underground required immediate technological improvisation, and The New York Times has an interactive graphic explaining the solution devised by engineers.

It has involved untold millions of dollars, specialists from NASA and drilling experts from a dozen or so countries. Some here at the mine have compared the rescue effort to the Apollo 13 space mission, for the emotional tension it has caused and the expectation of a collective sigh of relief at the end.

But the Chileans were in uncharted territory. To their knowledge, no one had tried a rescue so far underground. Keeping the miners alive and in good spirits, much less getting them out, would be an enormous challenge.

Doctors from NASA and Chilean Navy officers with experience in submarines were consulted on the strains of prolonged confinement. The miners had lost considerable weight and were living off emergency rations.

Link via DVICE

Southern Fried Scientist, a graduate student studying population genetics in hydrothermal vent communities, was onboard a research vessel longer than he normally likes to go without beer. So he decided to brew his own, and now offers detailed instructions on how you can do likewise:

The tools you need are simple: an electric drip coffee maker with hot plate, a coffee filter, 2 1-liter glass sample jars with air-tight lids, 2 handkerchiefs, 2 rubber bands, and a source of clean (preferably R/O) water.

You’ll have to be more creative with your ingredients. Your need grains, malt, hops, and something for flavor. Simple grains such as those found in common cereals – Raisin Bran, Cracked Wheat, Kashi, whatever you can find – are decent sources of starches and usually contain enough enzymes to break the most complex proteins down. Fruit and nuts will add flavor, but are not important. The grains should be ground as fine as possible, rolled under a rolling pin or crushed in a mortar and pestle. The smaller the grains the greater the reactive surface area.

Link via Say Uncle | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Matt Seppings used under Creative Commons license

io9 has a round up of some of the most gloriously elaborate costumes at this year's New York Comic Con. Pictured above is Tom DePetrillo's mechanized Avatar AMP suit. He spent 450 hours and $1,600 building it. At the link, you can view the suit in action, as well as other amazing works of costuming.

Link

It's a little unclear, but Rat Car appears to be a modified car sculpture created by the art collective Agency of Urban Subconscious. This photo may have been taken in Bucharest. At the link, you can view three more pictures of similarly altered cars.

Link via Super Punch | Photo: Camil Dumitrescu