Peter Jackson has revealed that The Beatles approached J.R.R. Tolkien forty years ago with a request to produce a movie version of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien turned them down:

[...]John Lennon wanted to play the role of the avaricious creature Gollum and Paul McCartney was to play Frodo Baggins in a proposed '60s Beatles movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy that never reached fruition. In fact, says Jackson, it was the author himself who nixed the plan. "It was something John was driving and J.R.R. Tolkien still had the film rights at that stage, but he didn't like the idea of the Beatles doing it. So he killed it," Jackson told the newspaper. George Harrison would have played the role that eventually went to Sir Ian McKellen, that of the wise wizard Gandalf, and Ringo Starr would have been Frodo's devoted sidekick, Sam.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,623838,00.html via blastr | Photo: Movie Chop Shop

British researchers have made progress toward developing materials that are able to bend light around them and render them less visible:

Metamaterials work by interrupting and channelling the flow of light at a fundamental level; in a sense they can be seen as bouncing light waves around in a prescribed fashion to achieve a particular result.[...]

Ortwin Hess, a physicist who recently took up the Leverhulme Chair in Metamaterials at Imperial College London, called the work "a huge step forward in very many ways".

"It clearly isn't an invisibility cloak yet - but it's the right step toward that," he told BBC News.

Link via Wired | Image: Warner Bros.

Instructables user RavingMadStudios made a cake shaped like the Dark Tower from The Lord of the Rings. The Eye of Sauron is a cupcake. The structure is supported by cardboard tubes resting on a bundt pan.

Link via Geektoplasm

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The human eye can rotate 500 degrees per second. Now a new robot eye is able to meet and exceed that ability by moving 2,500 degrees per second. German researchers led by Heinz Ulbrich at the Technical University of Munich developed this new head-mounted optical wonder:

The system, propped on a person's head, uses a custom made eye-tracker to monitor the person's eye movements. It then precisely reproduces those movements using a superfast actuator-driven mechanism with yaw, pitch, and roll rotation, like a human eyeball. When the real eye move, the robot eye follows suit.

Link via Nerdcore

In an article in The Proceedings of the Royal Society, two researchers described how mice in an experiment tended to get greater enjoyment out of rewards that were more labor-intensive:

Mice were trained to push levers to get either of two rewards. Press one lever, out comes a drop of sugar water. Press the other and they get a drop of different tasting sugar water.

Then things got interesting. For one of the treats, scientists gradually increased the amount of effort required for the payoff—from one lever-press to five, then 10, then 15. So by the end of the session, one type of sugar water cost 15 times more effort than the other.

The mice then retired to their home cage where both treats were freely available. And they showed a strong preference for whichever reward they’d worked harder to obtain. Based on how fast the mice sipped, they appeared to find the costlier sugar water more tasty.

Link | Photo by Flickr user Steve Berger Photography used under Creative Commons license

Scientists at the Fraunhofer Research Institution in Munich, Germany, have placed pH sensitive dyes in bandages. These change color when they come into contact with fluids that indicate that a wound is infected:

In creating the color control strip, the researchers had to ensure the dye remained chemically stable when bonded to the fibers of the dressing material or the plaster to ensure it doesn’t get into the wound. They also had to ensure the indicator showed a clear change in color and reacted sensitively in the right pH range.

The researchers have already produced a prototype of the dressing and they say initial tests have proved successful. They are now looking to take the idea further with plans to integrate optical sensor modules into the dressing to measure the pH value and indicate the results on a reader unit. This would allow the pH value to be read off precisely, providing information about how the wound is healing.

Link via Geekosystem | Photo: Fraunhofer EMFT

"Gurning" is apparently a competitive sport in Britain that consists of contorting one's face in ugly poses. Anne Woods, who's been a local champion for 27 years, will now get a special mention in the Guinness Book of World Records:

Gurning involves contorting the facial features into ugly positions while draped in a horse collar and it is thought that the competition at Egremont dates back to the middle ages.

Mrs Woods said: "It feels absolutely wonderful to have been accepted. But this is not before time; I've won the competition 27 times now.

"I am considering retiring, but I know what I'm like. Come next year's competition I'll be itching to get on stage again.

"Whatever happens, I doubt my record will be broken."

Anne started gurning when she was 30 after her brothers entered her into the competition without her permission.

She won and 33 years later Anne is still pulling her famous face.

Link | Photo: North News

The official standard for the kilogram is a cylinder of platinum and iridium made in 1879 and kept in a vault in France. Scientists have made official copies and distributed them since that time, but many of those copies don't equal each other in mass, and the original is undergoing decay. So now researchers are trying to come up with a new definition of the kilogram:

It’s a conundrum scientists need to solve because the kilogram is one of a few base units (like the second and the meter) that are used in the definitions of other, more complex units, such as those used to measure temperature, electricity or density. If the kilogram is off, even a little, critical measurements in science, engineering and commerce get messed up.[...]

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology is backing a definition based on the Planck Constant, a number from quantum mechanics. It’s a more complex definition than a simple cylinder, but it’s unlikely to change over the next century.

Link | Image: Clipart

Three years ago, we featured a chandelier that designer YaYa Chou made out of gummi bears. She's also made a candelabra from the same delicious substance.

Link via Geektoplasm | Photo: Kevin Janow

Edison Pena, one of the Chilean miners who was trapped underground for 69 days, was known to the media as "the runner" because he ran long distances underground to keep physically fit. On Sunday, he's going to compete in the New York City Marathon, according to Mary Wittenberg, the President of the New York City Road Runners Club:

Edison Pena, 34, was originally invited by the club, which organizes the annual marathon, to attend the event as a spectator. But Pena insisted on running in the 26.2-mile marathon, Wittenberg said.[...]

"To be out there whether running or walking is such an affirmation of the human spirit," she said of the marathon.

Wittenberg said Pena will be traveling to New York with his wife.

The 12th miner to be rescued, Pena is a diehard Elvis Presley fan who, despite speaking little English, knows most of the words to Elvis classics and led the trapped miners in sing-alongs during their 69-day ordeal underground.

Link via MArooned | Image: iClipart

At a high school football game in South Dakota, one player punted the ball 40 yards. The ball hit the ground, and thanks to strong winds, started rolling on the ground. And rolling. And rolling. Right up to the 3-yard line. At the link, you can watch an embedded video of the play.

http://www.argusleader.com/article/20101031/SPORTS0107/101031003/1002/sports via Deadspin

Designers Jasna Sokolovic and Noel O’Connell invented the Retroreflector Tie. It's a tie with built-in reflective stripes to make bicyclists more noticeable to automobile drivers.

Link via OhGizmo! | Jasna Sokolovic | Noel O'Connell | Photo by the designers

The town of Ston, Croatia, is protected by a wall three and a half miles long. This archaeological gem was built during the fifteen century while the region struggled for some margin of independence from the Ottoman Empire. It gradually decayed over time and was devastated by an earthquake in 1996, but restoration is presently underway.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo by Flickr user Dan.. used under Creative Commons license

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Philip Neuman, Gayle Stuwe Neuman, and William Gavin are three musicologists who have reconstructed music from ancient societies and performed them in front of living audiences. Their Ensemble De Organographia, as the group calls itself, used remnants of Sumerian musical notations to make the above recording.

http://www.emgo.org/performers.htm via Geek Dad

Instructables user ModMischief created a costume that makes her look like a genie on a flying carpet. Her legs are hidden beneath the carpet by a black curtain. The entire project took her just four hours to complete.

Link via Super Punch | Maker's Blog