(Video Link)

YouTube user MorRokko dressed her pet dwarf caiman in an Iron Man costume. She writes:

I wuv my caimen. He is probably the only crocodilian in the world that would let me do this.

via Urlesque

The Longreach Buoyancy Deployment System is a gadget in development that fires a buoyant life preserver at people stranded in the water up to 150 meters away:

Longreach is also equipped with Para-Flares for night-time Illumination. Longreach is designed to be simple to manufacture and easy to handle. Ideally used by emergency services personnel or a ship’s crew, Longreach has the potential to significantly reduce the number of drownings at sea.

Video at the link.

http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/Projects/Project.aspx?ID=1010&RegionId=0&Winindex=5 via GearFuse | Photos: Dyson Award

Bifocals and trifocals allow people with limited vision to see objects at varying distances, but only by refocusing on the object from a different vantage. A scientist named Zeev Zalevsky responded to this problem by developing a lens that allows the user to focus on any distance out from 33 centimeters:

It involves engraving the surface of a standard lens with a grid of 25 near-circular structures each 2 millimetres across and containing two concentric rings. The engraved rings are just a few hundred micrometres wide and a micrometre deep. "The exact number and size of the sets will change from one lens to another," depending on its size and shape, says Zalevsky.

The rings shift the phase of the light waves passing through the lens, leading to patterns of both constructive and destructive interference. Using a computer model to calculate how changes in the diameter and position of the rings alter the pattern, Zalevsky came up with a design that creates a channel of constructive interference perpendicular to the lens through each of the 25 structures. Within these channels, light from both near and distant objects is in perfect focus.

"It results in an axial channel of focused light, not a single focal spot," Zalevsky says. "If the retina is positioned anywhere along this channel, it will always see objects in focus."

Link via DVICE | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Muffet used under Creative Commons license

A Möbius strip is a ribbon of material that has only one side. A group of nanotechnology researchers experimenting with manipulating tiny objects was able to reshape a DNA strand into a Möbius strip.

The ability to create complex structures on the tiniest of scales is one of the great challenges of nanotechnology. In particular, chemists are looking for particular topological structures, or structures that keep their basic properties no matter how much you stretch or twist them. A Möbius strip is a good example of such a structure, because no matter what you do it (short of tearing it, of course), it will always have only one side.

Link | Journal Article (Subscription required) | Image: Han et al.

Kimbra Hickey is a hand model, and her hands grace the cover of the novel Twilight. She earned $300 for the photo. After seeing so many people attached to the franchise rise in fame and fortune, Hickey would like to get a piece of the action:

"I see people reading it on the subway, and I say, 'Those are my hands! I'm a hand model!' " she explained. "I'm sure they think I'm crazy -- a crazy lady on the subway."

The good-natured Hickey sometimes hangs out near the cash register at the Barnes & Noble near her Greenwich Village apartment to spread the word. Surprised customers sometimes ask her for her autograph or to trace the outline of her hand on the book jacket.

She even carries around a Gala apple in her purse at times so she can recreate the pose for people.[...]

Hickey's agent, Danielle Korwin, said her hands are in demand because they are "veinless" -- not the sort of hands a vampire would like.

Link via reddit | Photo: Angel Chevrestt

(Video Link)

Batten down the hatches and prepare for a cuteness overload: rabbit goodness now comes in cup-sized servings. Their dark, violent thoughts are perfectly hidden.

via Buzzfeed

Researchers at the University of Tokyo created an interface that allows a rat to move a small car around with just his thoughts:

The rats were trained on the car by towing it around an enclosed area with the motors disengaged. A vision system positioned above tracked the rats by following colored markers on their backs and the vehicle. It fed the positions into a "locomotion estimation model" program that correlated the motion of the animals with readings from the electrodes.

Next the rats were suspended more tightly to the car so their limbs touched the floor only slightly. The researchers then switched the system into "neuro-robotic mode," with the neural signals used to help drive the car. Six out of eight rats used in the study adapted well to the car.

The researchers hope that this project will lead to the development of thought-controlled mobility aids for disabled humans.

Link via Popular Science | Photo: IEEE Spectrum

Artist Robert Mathy created "Light Sensitive Fingertips" -- a musical instrument that has light sensitive phototransistors in the tips of the fingers. It's played by moving the sensors over light sources of varying intensity:

Light, emitted by the displays of activated mobile phones, functions as the origin of the sounds. As each mobile phone's display generates a different light frequency, each results in an audio signal with a different pitch. In addition, other electronic devices, such as flashing bicycle lights, can be used to generate rhythmic tones.

In the links, you can find a video of Mathy playing this instrument.

Link via GearFuse | Video | Photo: Robert Mathy

Sadly, there are people who have email accounts, but only a limited grasp of basic computer or social skills. Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal has a new set of comics up illustrating the foibles of such folks.

Link

What email habit do you find most irritating?

Britain's new DEMON unmanned aerial drone doesn't need wing elevators or ailerons to fly:

It is instead manoeuvred by hundreds of tiny jets that blast air in order to influence to change the lift, drag and other features of performance.

The result is a more streamlined, aerodynamic craft that cuts down on edges and gaps - features that can increase radar detection.

The end result is an aircraft with fewer moving parts in need of maintenance and a reduced radar signature.

Link via OhGizmo! | Photo: Cranfield University

Itasha is, reportedly, a Japanese hobby of decorating cars with female anime characters. Photographer Tomoyuki Sakaguchi took 23 pictures of some of the finer examples of this style.

Link via Pink Tentacle

(Video Link)

Flight attendants on board a Cebu Pacific Airlines flight remixed Katy Perry and Lady Gaga in their unique presentation of their jet's safety features:

Candice Iyog, vice President of Marketing at Cebu Pacific Airlines, said: "Cebu Pacific has always been known as a fun airline, we wanted to get the message across to our customers that flight safety doesn't have to be boring.

"This was an experiment that we hope to repeat and also a chance to showcase the talent of some of our cabin crew staff."

The performance took place while the plane was at cruising altitude, with the cabin crew giving a normal safety demonstration before take-off.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ

As a publicity stunt for his upcoming movie Megamind, Will Ferrell gathered 1,580 people dressed as superheroes in order to break a Guinness World Record for that feat:

A total of 1,580 costumed individuals showed up to the event, which was more than enough to break the record of 1,500 set by a New Hampshire children’s hospital way back in… August.[...]

Then Ferrell majestically appeared on a rising stage platform, and Guinness spokesman Stuart Claxton verified the world record, to the sound of cheers. “Everyone in a Spider-Man outfit wins a new car!” joked Ferrell.

Link via Fanboy | Photo: Valerie Macon/Getty Images

The Michael Bayifier takes any photo and makes it look like a still shot from a Michael Bay movie (e.g. Transformers, Armageddon). Pictured above is Alex and his kids on one of their action-packed vacations.

Link via The Presurfer

In the 1960s (of course), psychologist Paul Bindrim, building upon the work of Abraham Maslow, invented a form of psychotherapy that involved everyone getting naked:

Nude therapy was based on the idea of the naked body as a metaphor of the "psychological soul." Uninhibited exhibition of the nude body revealed that which was most fundamental, truthful, and real. In the marathon, Bindrim interrogated this metaphor with a singular determination. Bodies were exposed and scrutinized with a science-like rigor. Particular attention was paid to revealing the most private areas of the body and mind-all with a view to freeing the self from its socially imposed constraints. "This," Bindrim asserted gesturing to a participant's genitalia and anus, "is where it's at. This is where we are so damned negatively conditioned" [...] Determined to squelch the "exaggerated sense of guilt" in the body, Bindrim devised an exercise called "crotch eyeballing" in which participants were instructed to look at each others genitals and disclose the sexual experiences they felt most guilty about while lying naked in a circle with their legs in the air [...] In this position, Bindrim insisted "you soon realize that the head end and the tail end are indispensable parts of the same person, and that one end is about as good as the other.:"

http://people.stu.ca/~nicholson/Ian_Nicholson/Research_files/Baring%20the%20Soul.pdf via io9 | Unrelated photo of Bob Newhart statue via Flickr user Digital Sextant, used under Creative Commons license