But I wouldn't suggest sitting in it -- it's an art piece rather than functional furniture. Scott Jarvie made the Clutch Chair out of 10,000 drinking straws after "a microscopic observation of the structural composition of trees and the directional properties of Capillary tubes...." You can view more pictures at the link.
This is Nissan's prototype for a personal mobility device. Just step on to the footpads and lean in the direction that you want to go:
The device has two foot boards, both of which are balanced on two wheels. The device’s tilt sensors detect when you shift your weight to turn, traveling at a maximum rate of about 5kph. The foot boards have handle bars attached to help you maintain balance, and can be connected in a variety of positions or separated.
When separated, the device only moves forwards and backwards. To turn, you simply lift and turn your leg as if you were wearing stilts. The overall effect is one of ski-less skis.
High school science teacher "Mr. Kent" has a YouTube channel full of neat chemistry demonstration videos. In this one, he sets ice on fire. Here's how:
Ice is added to a dry Pyrex bowl. When the Ice melts the water reacts with the calcium carbide (place on the bottom) to produce acetylene gas and calcium hydroxide. The acetylene gas then explodes into flames when a match is place on top. It will continue to burn even as the ice melts because it keeps producing acetylene until the calcium carbide runs out.
The Chiang Mai Yi Peng Festival is an Buddhist holy day in Thailand. That evening, celebrants send send burning lanterns aloft, floating on hot air. According to YouTube user bugzila:
[...]it is the great festival of Lanna duly succeeded from ancient age. "Yi Peng" or full-moon day of second lunar month of Lanna villagers is corresponding to the full-moon day of 12th month of central region during the end of raining season and beginning of cold season when the climate is very nice and fair. One tradition of Lanna other than Loi Kra Thong on the river is to light up the lantern and float up in the sky based on their belief that to pay worship to Phra Ket Kaew Julamanee in the heaven or to relief one' bad luck for more auspicious life.
The Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah has created an interactive feature that allows you to see the relative size of small objects, starting with a coffee bean and magnifying down to a carbon atom. Click on the link and use the sliding bar at the bottom of the application to zoom in.
Lauren McCarthy created the Happiness Hat - a gadget that detects whether or not you're smiling. If you're not, it drives a small metal spike into the back of your head to encourage to you resolve that problem quickly:
An enclosed bend sensor attaches to the cheek and measures smile size, a servo motor moves a metal spike into the head inversely proportional to the degree of smile. Through repeated use of this conditioning device you can train your brain to smile all the time. The device runs on Arduino.
A legal secretary at PepsiCo forgot to deal with a lawsuit notice that came across her desk. Consequently, PepsiCo's lawyers did not show up to court when expected. The presiding judge summarily handed down a $1.26 billion judgment against the corporation. Lynne Marek writes in The National Law Journal:
In court papers, PepsiCo claims it first received a legal document related to the case from the North Carolina agent on Sept. 15 when a copy of a co-defendant's letter was forwarded to Deputy General Counsel Tom Tamoney in PepsiCo's law department. Tamoney's secretary, Kathy Henry, put the letter aside and didn't tell anyone about it because she was "so busy preparing for a board meeting," PepsiCo said in its Oct. 13 motion to vacate.
Vadim Ryazanov built a robot that rolls away from you as you reach for it. He calls it "Mr. Wake." As soon as the alarm goes off, an IR sensor on the robot turns on. The robot is programmed to move in the opposite direction of any object moving toward it:
Now, to give you idea how Wake works: Alarm clock mechanism I used has 3 contacts, Plus, Ground, and Alarm, which goes high when alarm goes off. This was really fortune for me, as I had only to connect the grounds and use this Alarm pin as analog input (Could not use it as digital as clock runs on 1.5V) and it workes just fine. So, whenever Alarm pin goes high, my code picks this up and switches Mr. Wake from "standby" to "alarm" mode, which makes him switch on IR leds and red LED in Magic Button on, read ambient reading from IR transistors and wait till the reading inceased above ambiant one, which means something is aproaching from above (I have the detection only from above, where clock and Magic Button are.
The Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt isn't just a t-shirt. You can actually play music on it. Use a magnetic pick over the string markings and press down on the frets with your other hand. There's also a volume nob and an amplifier that fits on your belt.
Swiss artist Felice Varini is known for his massive art installations that show different images depending on the viewer's vantage point. Recently, he created an optical illusion that covered the entire Swiss town of Vercorin. In the picture above, it looks like rings have been drawn over an image, but what Varini has done is painted walls and roofs at particular angels to give this impression. Click on the link for pictures that show how Varini crated this illusion.
Horrace Burgess of Crossville, Tennessee built a treehouse 97 feet tall. Its 8,000 square feet of floor space is spread over 11 stories. The house is built around a tree 80 feet high and 12 feet wide at the base, so much of the structure extends well beyond the tree itself.
A building of over 11 floors would be expected to have some extra amenities – and the treehouse Horrace has established is no exception. This particular one comes complete with a mini basketball court – if you thought playing you would never live to see guys playing basketball on top of a tree!
The owner of the edifice is a 56 years old landscape architect by the way, and he say an upwards of $12,000 has gone into building thetreehouse . Asked about where he got the inspiration to build the edifice, he cites a prayer vision he got in the early 90s – going further to say that he built it ‘for God.’ Nobody is arguing with him – and nobody is contesting the assertion that it is the world’s greatesttreehouse either. Meanwhile, building work has not stopped at the 11th floor…the building is still a ‘work in progress!’
There are many pictures of the treehouse at the link.
Dutch designer Jelte van Abbema created a typeface out of e. coli bacteria. Cliff Kuang wrote in Fast Company about how he did it:
Van Abbema created the font by stamping bacteria into paper, and then placing the paper in a jury-rigged incubator, which provided the right humdity and warmth for the organisms. As they multiplied and died, the resulting fonts changed color and shape. As van Abbema says, bacteria "transforms the image to something new," creating something that is literally alive, changing every minute without ever being tended.
An artist from MAC Cosmetics painted a woman as a comic book character for Halloween -- right down to the dot printing style of old comics books. Or, alternatively, as a figure from a Roy Lichtenstein painting.
The pictures were taken by publicist and photographer Tasha Marie. You can view more at the link.
Tara Parker-Pope writes in The New York Times about the conclusions of some medical researchers that long-distance running is a major evolutionary advantage for humans. The ability to remain cool by sweating instead of panting and a foot structure ideal for running helped early humans hunt:
Most mammals can sprint faster than humans — having four legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.
Why would evolution favor the distance runner? The prevailing theory is that endurance running allowed primitive humans to incorporate meat into their diet. They may have watched the sky for scavenging birds and then run long distances to reach a fresh kill and steal the meat from whatever animal was there first.
Other research suggests that before the development of slingshots or bows, early hunters engaged in persistence hunting, chasing an animal for hours until it overheated, making it easy to kill at close range. A 2006 report in the journal Current Anthropology documents persistence hunting among modern hunter-gatherers, including the Bushmen in Africa.[...]
There is other evidence that evolution favored endurance running. A study in The Journal of Experimental Biology last February showed that the short toes of the human foot allowed for more efficient running, compared with longer-toed animals. Increasing toe length as little as 20 percent doubles the mechanical work of the foot. Even the fact that the big toe is straight, rather than to the side, suggests that our feet evolved for running.