Police in Argentina are on the lookout for two escaped prisoners. Due to a manpower shortage, only two of the fifteen guard towers at a prison were manned. One had a crudely-made dummy inside which did not fool the prisoners:

A prison source said: "We've made a dummy out of a football and a prison officer's cap, so that the prisoner see its shadow and think they're being watched."

"We named him Wilson, like in the film Cast Away, and put him in one of the towers," the man told the Diario Rio Negro newspaper, referring to the Tom Hanks film in which his character invents a volleyball character for company.

Link | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user tm-tm used under Creative Commons license

We've previously mentioned that engineers in various firms have been developing cars that can drive themselves. A group of Italian engineers is putting their automated car to a rather rigorous test: driving from Italy to Shanghai without direct human guidance.

Two bright orange vehicles, equipped with laser scanners and cameras that work in concert to detect and help avoid obstacles, are to brave the traffic of Moscow, the summer heat of Siberia and the bitter cold of the Gobi desert before the planned arrival in Shanghai at the end of October.

"What we are trying to do is stress our systems and see if they can work in a real environment, with real weather, real traffic and crazy people who cross the road in front of you and a vehicle that cuts you off," said project leader Alberto Broggi.

The road trip consists of two pairs of vehicles, each with a driven lead van followed by a driverless vehicle occupied by two technicians, whose job is to fix glitches and take over the wheel in case of an emergency.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128639246&ft=1&f=1004 via Popular Science | Photo of unrelated Siberian road by Flickr user vladislav.bezrukov used under Creative Commons license

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This video demonstrates a physical motion simulation program developed by the start-up company Lagoa Technologies. It shows columns of dirt smashing into the ground and scattering, as well as other effects that could make future video games even more awesome.

via Gizmodo

A new business in Britain sells ice cream to dogs from a truck. The K99 Van travels around, plays the Scooby Doo theme, and selling ice cream that is safe for dogs to consume:

Head chef behind the K99's recipes Ceric Nale said: 'When it came to designing the recipes for the K99s, we wanted to make sure we had the most exciting flavour and texture combinations.

'After a lot of research, a gammon and chicken ice cream and a mixed dog biscuit ice cream were the clear winners, and we hope they'll be flavours dogs simply can't refuse.'

Link via Geekosystem | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Roadsidepictures used under Creative Commons license

A man in New York City successfully robbed a bank. His weapon of choice was a bunch of flowers:

A security camera photo published by the police showed the suspect standing at the cashier's window holding the bouquet while handing over the note, which reportedly read: "Give me all your hundreds, fifties, don't be a hero."

The man fled the scene after the teller handed over $440 (£288).

The New York Post reported that it was the second known bank heist by the suspect, who last week robbed a different New York bank armed with a potted houseplant.

Link | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user kimubert used under Creative Commons license

We've previously featured Luke Jerram's glass sculptures of deadly viruses. On a more pleasant note, Jerram is getting married. He worked with jeweler Tamrakar to make his own wedding ring. It contains tiny slides that, with a bit of light, project images of Jerram and his bride, Shelina Nanji:

In a darkened room, light from a candle or LED passes through the ring to project a series of portraits. A selection of miniature slides were made of different family portraits and inserted into the edge of the ring for projection. The ring was inspired by 19th Century Standhopes.

http://www.lukejerram.com/projects/portrait_projecting_ring via DVICE | Photo: Luke Jerram

Steven Ortiz, a 17-year old boy, used Craigslist to trade his old cell phone for an iPod Touch. He traded that gadget for something better, which he then traded for something even better. After a total of fourteen trades, starting with a cell phone, he had a Porsche Boxster:

Steven started his lucrative journey when his friend gave him an old cell phone - the sort most people would throw away or shove into a junk drawer.

He traded that phone for a better phone, which he then traded for an i-Pod touch. He traded that for a series of dirt bikes, a MacBook Pro, and a 1987 Toyota 4Runner.

At the time, Steven was just 15 and unable to drive his new acquisition. So he quickly swapped it out for a souped-up off-road golf
cart, another more valuable dirt bike, a streetbike, then a series of cars ending with a 1975 Ford Bronco. He spent a few months enjoying each acquisition before determining he was looking for something else.

It was that Bronco that got him the Porsche. Because some older Broncos are considered collectibles, Steven estimated his was worth $15,000.

He got offered all manner of trades - including a locksmith business - for the Bronco. The Porsche, worth about $9,000, was actually a trade down.

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ci_15535695 via Jalopnik | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user The Car Spy used under Creative Commons license

It looks like a door opening in a concrete wall, right? It's not. This is a flat mirror designed by Sarah Dayo that creates that optical illusion. She writes:

Sometimes we cannot help but to try and catch a glimpse of the otherside.

Passing through the everyday spaces we inhibit, the door half opened always stirs up a sense of seduction and curiosity within us. Inspired by these ordinary yet inexplicable moments in our daily lives, I designed a mirror that gives an illusion of a door opening on any given surface.

Link via Make | Photo: Sarah Dayo

200 people in Ito City, Japan, raced small wooden tubs down a 1,300 foot river. Rowing with rice paddles, participants tried to move quickly without tipping over the tubs. This unusual sport is a local tradition, and Ito City has held this competition annually for 54 years. At the link, you can watch a video (preceded by a commercial) from CBS News on the race.

Link via Urlesque | Photo: CBS News | Previously: Crossing the Sea of Japan in a Bathtub

We've previously mentioned that the solar powered aircraft Solar Impulse was able to remain in the air for a full day. The similarly powered Zephyr, designed by the company QinetiQ, has now stayed in the air for more than a full week. Its engineers plan to continue its flight for at least another week in order to test its abilities. From QinetiQ's press release:

Launched by hand, the aircraft flies by day on solar power delivered by amorphous silicon solar arrays no thicker than sheets of paper that cover the aircraft's wings. These are also used to recharge the lithium-sulphur batteries, supplied by Sion Power Inc, which are used to power the aircraft by night. Together they provide an extremely high power to weight ratio on a continuous day/night cycle, thereby delivering persistent on-station capabilities.

Link via CrunchGear | Photo: QinetiQ

Two scientists placed human subjects and snakes inside a MRI machine to measure how the human body responds to fear. Scientific American reports how they did it, and why:

You are in an MRI machine. Your head is fixed in a round cage. Your body is rolled into a narrow tube. Magnetic pulses are beamed into your brain. A meter-and-a-half-long snake is strapped with Velcro atop a small box on a conveyor belt just inches behind your head. Your eyes meet the snake’s beady gaze through a tiny mirror above your head. You can’t move.

Why would Uri Nili and Yadin Dudai, two scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, want to put a snake in the MRI scanner with you? Obviously, not to scan the snake’s brain (although this might be an interesting possibility). They wanted to scan your brain while you perform an act of courage. They wanted to push research on fear one step further – from understanding how we passively react to fear, through actively avoiding it, to actually confronting it.

The subject could choose to move the snake closer or farther away in increments that the researchers called "snake-advance units". As the subject altered the relative position of the snake, instruments examined changes in his/her body.

Link | Video (self-starting) | Photo by Flickr user RussBowling used under Creative Commons license

In some recesses of the radio spectrum, you can listen to strange broadcasts that consist entirely of people reading numbers. For years, people have speculated about the purpose of these unlicensed, unidentified radio stations. The most obvious possibility is espionage. NPR consulted Mark Stout, a spycraft historian, on the subject:

He tells NPR's Guy Raz that the stations are unlicensed, which makes it hard to figure out where they're broadcasting from. And the mystery only deepens: No government has ever officially admitted to using numbers stations. No one's really sure when the stations began broadcasting, though they're most likely a Cold War-era invention.

And, Stout says, no matter how advanced modern computer cryptography is, good old shortwave is often the best option for getting messages to spies in the field.

"Because [a message] can be broadcast over such an enormous area, you can be transmitting to an agent who may be thousands of miles away," he says. And, he adds, computer communications almost always leave traces.

"It's really hard to erase data out of your hard drive or off a memory stick," he says. "But all you need here is a shortwave radio and pencil and paper."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128586766 via reddit | Photo by Flickr user maliciousmonkey used under Creative Commons license

Many websites, such as YouTube, let users flag grotesque or illegal images that violate the hosts' terms of service agreements. But that's a lot of nasty content. Every wonder who actually checks everything that gets flagged? It turns out that some people, as a job, spend all day looking at horrifying images from the bowels of the Internet. In The New York Times, Brad Stone writes:

Ricky Bess spends eight hours a day in front of a computer near Orlando, Fla., viewing some of the worst depravities harbored on the Internet. He has seen photographs of graphic gang killings, animal abuse and twisted forms of pornography. One recent sighting was a photo of two teenage boys gleefully pointing guns at another boy, who is crying.

An Internet content reviewer, Mr. Bess sifts through photographs that people upload to a big social networking site and keeps the illicit material — and there is plenty of it — from being posted.[...]

The surge in Internet screening services has brought a growing awareness that the jobs can have mental health consequences for the reviewers, some of whom are drawn to the low-paying work by the simple prospect of making money while looking at pornography.

“You have 20-year-old kids who get hired to do content review, and who get excited because they think they are going to see adult porn,” said Hemanshu Nigam, the former chief security officer at MySpace. “They have no idea that some of the despicable and illegal images they will see can haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

Link via Gizmodo | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user TheMuuj used under Creative Commons license

A trial of a powerful new microbicidal vaginal gel reduced the HIV infection rate of test subjects by 54%. The gel is a 1% solution of the antiretroviral drug tenofovir, which stops HIV replication. At Scientific American, Katherine Harmon writes:

A reliable HIV-prevention method for women has thus far proved hard to come by, leaving many millions of at-risk women subject to their partner's decision about condoms.

But a gel that can be applied discretely could severely cut back on HIV, a disease that currently infects an estimated 33 million people worldwide. Researchers involved in the new study calculated that if about a third of women in South Africa could use this gel, in the next 20 years, 1.3 million HIV infections—and 820,000 HIV-related deaths—could be prevented in that country alone.

Link | Image: NIH

The US defense company Raytheon debuted its new anti-aircraft and anti-missile laser system at the Farnborough Airshow in the UK. It will function as a supplement to the ship-mounted Phalanx system, an automated Gatling gun that fires at missiles and aircraft approaching a naval vessel. Raytheon representative Mike Booen said:

"It functions as the last line of defence, so if you can fit a laser onto it, you have a longer reach and an unlimited magazine, cause it keeps on throwing out photons," he added.

Two problems that have dogged laser weapon development for some time are weather conditions and the target itself. Damp maritime air can absorb the laser energy before it reaches the target and - as developers discovered in the 1960s when trying to target Russian Mig aircraft - a reflective surface can negate much of the laser's effectiveness.

Mr Booen acknowledges this, but said that these problems could be overcome.

"Every material reflects, but you can overcome this with power; once you get over a certain threshold - measured in multiple kilowatts - then the laser does what it is designed to do," he said.

Mr Booen said that once a material started getting hot, it affected the reflective ability, making the target absorb more energy and eventually leading to its destruction.

At the link, you can view a video of an unmanned drone getting shot down by the system.

Link via Fast Company | Image (artist's conception) courtesy of Raytheon