Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have developed a prototype for an artificial kidney:

The device, which would include thousands of microscopic filters as well as a bioreactor to mimic the metabolic and water-balancing roles of a real kidney[...]

The treatment has been proven to work for the sickest patients using a room-sized external model developed by a team member in Michigan. Roy's goal is to apply silicon fabrication technology, along with specially engineered compartments for live kidney cells, to shrink that large-scale technology into a device the size of a coffee cup. The device would then be implanted in the body without the need for immune suppressant medications, allowing the patient to live a more normal life.

The researchers hope to begin clinical trials in five to seven years.

Link via Gizmodo | Image: UCSF

The television show Lost in Space, airing from 1965-1968, presented the adventures of a family in space in the year 1997. In a set of campy stories, the Robinsons clashed with buffoonish pirates, anthropomorphic vegetables, and prospectors from the Old West. The show didn't take itself too seriously, but was took a lighthearted look at the science fiction genre. Let's take a tour of some facts that you might not know about the show.

1. Lost in Space is an obvious parallel to The Swiss Family Robinson novel and Disney movie. But Irwin Allen was specifically inspired by a comic book series called Space Family Robinson, published by Gold Key from 1962-1984. It had a similar premise to Lost in Space: the Robinsons were space explorers. After 1966, the comic book adopted the same Space Family Robinson -- Lost in Space to get attention from the show's fans. The comic book endured long after the show's cancellation until its publisher folded.

2. Carroll O'Connor, who played Archie Bunker on All in the Family, was initially considered to play the role of Dr. Smith.

3. Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet was so popular that Irwin Allen decided to have a robot as a cast member. Robbie himself guest-starred in two episodes.

4. The pilot episode cost $600,000. At the time, it was the most expensive TV pilot to date, with the exception of Star Trek's $630,000 first pilot episode “The Cage.”

5. Gene Roddenberry approached CBS with Star Trek when Irwin Allen did so with Lost in Space. CBS decided that one science fiction show was enough, and preferred Lost in Space.

6. When aliens on the show were depicted with pointed ears (e.g. “The Haunted Lighthouse”), the molds were borrowed from the makeup artists at Star Trek.

7. Guy Williams (John Robinson) was a prominent actor, thanks to his title role in the TV series Zorro. He was under the impression that, in Lost in Space, he would have the lead role in a serious drama. But as the show progressed, it became increasingly campy and Williams' role a supporting one. Embittered about this development, he never acted after the series was canceled. Williams retired to Argentina, where Zorro was tremendously popular, shortly after Lost in Space ended.

8. The strongly campy nature of the second and third seasons was, by the way, entirely intentional. A year after Lost in Space debuted, the TV series Batman became a spectacular ratings success. Irwin Allen noticed and attributed its ratings to the show's playful tone. He altered Lost in Space accordingly. 

9. Child actor Kurt Russell, later famous for films such as Big Trouble in Little China, made one of his first screen appearances in the episode "The Challenge." In this episode, Russell played a young boy from a warrior culture sent to hunt on the planet as a rite of passage.

10. At the beginning of the series, Bill Mumy (Will) was twelve and Angela Cartwright (Penny) was fourteen. Mumy had a crush his television sister from the beginning and made his move two years later. This was the first romantic relationship for either of them and they dated for six years. For a short time, Mumy and Cartwright were engaged, but they eventually broke it off. 

11. Years after the show’s cancellation, Mumy wrote a script for a reunion episode. He arranged casting and got the support of 20th Century Fox and CBS. But Irwin Allen, fearing that Mumy would later have a copyright claim on Lost in Space, refused to even look at the script. The reunion never took place.

12. The cast did, however, have a reunion on a 1984 episode of Family Feud in which they squared off against the cast of Hawaiian Eye. Here's a clip. Sources: Peel, John. The Complete Lost in Space Book. Granada Hills, CA: Schuster and Schuster, 1987. Print. Van Hise, James. Lost in Space 25th Anniversary Tribute Book. Las Vegas: Pioneer Books, 1990. Print. Images: CBS, Gold Key Stories, Paramount, Disney, ABC, CBS, and CBS, respectively.

(Video Link)

We've all contemplated that nightmare scenario: you're trapped in an IKEA store after closing, the cold of winter is seeping into your bones, and worst of all, a pack timber wolves is starting to circle around you. You need to start a fire now. But how? This video by Vimeo user Helmet tells you how to start a fire with nothing more than the products you can find in an IKEA store.

via reddit

A chemical analysis of Nubian mummies dating back 1,600 years indicates that the ancient Nubians brewed beer with tetracycline, an antibiotic. Chemist Mark Nelson recently published an article arguing that this activity was intentional:

Nelson found large amounts of tetracycline in the bones tested from the ancient population, which lived in the Nubian kingdom (present day Sudan) between 250 A.D. and 550 A.D. and left no written record.

“The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time,” Nelson said in a press release August 30. “I’m convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug.”[...]

This study was co-authored by George Armelagos, who asked graduate students to try to brew this type of beer:

To make sure that making the antibiotic beer was possible, Armelagos had his graduate students give it a try.

“What they were making wasn’t like a Bud Light but a cereal gruel,” Armelagos said. “My students said that it was ‘not bad,’ but it is like a sour porridge substance. The ancient people would have drained the liquid off and also eaten the gruel.”

Link | Photo by Flickr user maccun934 used under Creative Commons license

Primatologists in Guinea have observed wild chimpanzees intentionally disabling snares:

On two occasions witnessed, the chimps successfully deactivated the traps set for them.[...]

A typical snare, for example one made by the Manon people of Bossou, consists of a loop of iron wire connected by a vine rope to an arched stick, often a sapling.

The sapling puts tension into the rope and once an animal passes through the wire loop, the trap is sprung and the sapling pulls it tight, around the neck or leg of an animal.

Such traps cause indiscriminate damage, ensnaring any and all animals that come into contact with them.

But male Bossou chimps have worked out how to outwit the hunters and deactivate the traps.

"They seemed to know which parts of the snares are dangerous and which are not," Mr Ohashi told the BBC.

Link via Marginal Revolution | Image: Fox

The artists at Pink Cake Box made a wedding cake inspired by the webcomic xkcd:

The top of the cake includes cutouts of the comic characters with a red heart on a wire between them. The entire cake is covered in white fondant with black thin bands at the base of each tier. Equations inspired by this comic decorate the remaining tiers.

Link via Super Punch

Previously:
I Love xkcd
We Love xkcd (Starring Miss Cellania!)
xkcd Idea Leads to New YouTube Feature

Cha Sa-soon, 69, has become something of a celebrity in her native Korea after trying hundreds of times to pass the test necessary to get a driver's license. She finally made it:

For three years beginning in April 2005, she took her driving test once a day, five days a week. After that, her pace slowed, to around twice a week.

"When she finally got her licence, we all went out cheering and hugged her, giving her flowers," said Park Su-yeon, an instructor at Jeonbuk Driving School.

He said that Mrs Cha would not be a danger, since it was on the written part of the test, rather than the practical side, that she had failed so many times.

Link | Photo: motortrivia.com

In the past, people in Brazil have tried to smuggle cell phones into prisons using pigeons and toy helicopters. Recently, a boy was caught outside of the walls of a Brazilian prison trying to shoot cell phones into the yard using a bow and arrow:

Police say a 17-year-old teen was detained after he shot arrows with cell phones attached over the walls of a prison in southern Brazil to inmates waiting on the other side.

Authorities say the boy was caught after one of the arrows he launched struck a police officer on the back. The officer was not seriously injured because the cell phone was tied to the tip of the arrow and softened the impact.

Police Lt. Mauricio Cravo told RBS TV that a local gang hired the teen, giving him a professional bow and training him how to use it.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gTlTYzYLu_80SWBp1NKLA2xSI22gD9HVT0LG0 via Super Punch | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user andygee1 used under Creative Commons license

(Video Link)

Jackie Roy Tuner, a US veteran of the invasion of Normandy, plays the trumpet. In this video, he shares a story about one night when, on the front line, he played his trumpet to entertain troops on both sides.

via reddit

Most printed books come in certain standard sizes which have been used for hundreds of years. Even the dimensions of Kindles and other eReaders are derived from these norms of printing. And where did these standards come from? According to medieval scholar Carl Pyrdum, they're based on the size of a sheep:

The question then becomes, I guess, why were medieval books the size they were? And the answer to that is simple: medieval books were the size they were because medieval sheep were the size they were. Remember, paper wasn't the original medium for page-creation. Medieval books were constructed of parchment, which is a fancy word for sheep or goat skin (and primarily sheep skin, because there were a lot more of them around).

The whole sheepskin, flattened out and folded in half, is one common size. Fold it again, and it's another size. All of these sizes and dimensions are still being used by printing houses in the 21st century. The Kindle, for example, is the size of a sheepskin folded over three times. Pyrdum provides further examples and concludes:

Next time you're squinting at your mass-market copy of Dan Brown's latest wishing the pages were just a smidge roomier, blame the medievals for not having bigger sheep.

Link via Wired | Photo by Flickr user David Masters used under Creative Commons license

A research team in Hiroshima, Japan is developing airbags that deploy outside, rather than inside, the car. Their goal is to protect pedestrians who are involved in a crash:

Dubbed iSAVE (sigh…), the airbags deflate rapidly upon impact, just like conventional airbags, to soften the effects of a crash for pedestrians. The prototype car equipped with iSAVE that you can see on the pic above was shown earlier this week and is said to be the first of its kind. iSAVE can be used with electric cars only.

The research team behind the airbags says it expects to sell up to 50 units by year end for 3-wheeled cars before fully commercializing them in 2011 for four-wheeled vehicles. The iSAVE system for 4-wheeled cars will likely be priced at $17,800.

http://www.asahi.com/car/news/OSK201008280130.html (in Japanese) via CrunchGear via DVICE | Photo: Asahi

Drake University is a private college in Iowa. Pictured above is a logo from its new ad campaign. Do you think that it sends a good message?

The college administration doesn't see any problem:

However, Drake officials are standing by the D+ campaign -- which college officials crafted with outside PR contractors. Defenders of the ad blitz described it as "edgy and intriguing" in a letter to faculty and staff this week. The letter explained that the campaign "was designed to catch the attention of high school students who are bombarded with college and university materials to the point that they are often in information overload and unable to differentiate among the many institutions that have contacted them."

Link | College Website | Screenshot: Yahoo

(Video Link)

Astronaut and educator Don Pettit recorded this time-lapse video from the International Space Station. It shows day turning into night as the Earth rotates beneath him.

via Radley Balko

At a 1997 soccer match, Roberto Carlos scored a goal against the French national team that seemed physically impossible. The ball seemed to curve around the French players. Physicists couldn't explain the ball's movement:

A group of French scientists, perhaps desperate to prove that at least the laws of physics weren’t actively rooting against their national team, have been able to figure out the trajectory of the ball and, with it, an equation to describe its unusual path.

It all comes down to the fact that, when a sphere spins, its trajectory is a spiral. Usually, gravity and the relatively short distance the ball travels cover up this spiral trajectory, but Carlos was a mere 115 feet away and kicked the ball hard enough to reveal its true spiral-like path. As you can see in the diagram above, the ball would have kept spiraling if gravity (and the netting) hadn’t gotten in the way.

At the link, you can see a video of the kick.

Link | Image: New Journal of Physics

(Video Link)

Tony Orrico is both a visual and a performance artist, and often combines the two approaches by creating works in front of audiences. Here, he created an elaborate geometric pattern in eight circles using the movements of his body as measuring tools. The result took precisely 1,000 body movements to complete.

via Make | Artist's Website