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Construction workers rebuilding the World Trade Center in New York City often have to spend half of their lunch breaks riding elevators up and down to buy lunch. But soon, a sub shop will come to them. The Subway restaurant company built an outlet out of shipping containers. A crane will lift it high into the sky to provide meals to workers where they are:

Meals will be offered high in the sky for efficiency; to get food from street level, hundreds of ironworkers now use an elevator and must also climb.

"This amenity will save time by allowing construction workers to stay in the tower throughout their shift rather than having to go all the way up and down," said Candace McAdams, spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that owns the World Trade Center site.

A full Subway menu will be served, including the trademark $5 foot-long hero.

Richard Schragger, who owns the Freedom Tower franchise, said he'll also offer extras no other Subway has: hot dogs, hamburgers and New York's famed pretzels.

Like other franchises of the Milford, Conn.-based company, this one will bake its own bread daily — higher and higher above ground zero. As the tower grows, the lift will "jump" to the next new floor along with the restaurant, at a rate of one story about every week or two, engineers estimate.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hv0Y-A0oQW2-B88x6cwNS_KSB9HgD9CP9M7O0 via Gizmodo

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Swiss artist Zimoun builds sound installations that create a unique audiovisual experience. This video is a compilation of many of his projects, including listening to woodworms at work using a microphone, an automat with selections representing different cities, and pvc hoses flopping about under the force of compressed air. You can see an archive of project-specific videos at the above video link.

Official Website via Make

Jessica Cox was born without arms, but that hasn't prevented her from becoming the first licensed pilot to fly with only her feet:

With one foot manning the controls and the other delicately guiding the steering column, Cox, 25, soared to achieve a Sport Pilot certificate. Her certificate qualifies her to fly a light-sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet.

“She’s a good pilot. She’s rock solid,” said Parrish Traweek, 42, the flying instructor at San Manuel’s Ray Blair Airport.

At the link, you can find many amazing pictures of all of the things that Cox can do, like wield nunchucks with her toes.

http://ansblog.com/2009/12/could-you-believe-of-being-a-pilot-without-hands-see-jessica-cox/ via Ace of Spades HQ | Cox's Website | Photo: Nitin Singh

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Jared Lyon is engaged in an ongoing project to find innovative ways of using falling dominoes. The project is called "Dominoes Everywhere", and for the Christmas holidays, he performed the "Carol of the Bells" by placing bells at particular intervals between falling dominoes.

via Ace of Spades HQ | Lyon's Blog

Vespa's South African division had this stretch scooter made as a promotional gimmick. They refer to it as a family-sized vehicle:

According to Vespa, here's a list of uses for the stretched scooter: it's a sensible family car on two wheels and kids will look forward to going to school on it. You can be the designated driver and still park outside the front door of the party. When you make new buddies, you can take them home with you - and you save money on fuel.

It's a custom job, so don't rush down to a dealership expecting to find one.

Link via CrunchGear

Christmas is all about awkward moments at family gatherings. Le Trung, inventor of the robotic woman substitute Aiko, took that principle to a whole new level when he decided that he should celebrate Christmas with both his parents and his fembot:

The science genius enjoyed a festive dinner with his mum, dad and his £30,000 fembot which he designed and built by hand.

Le, 34, from Brampton, Ontario, Canada, even bought gifts for his dream girl, who is so lifelike she speaks fluent English and Japanese, helped cook the turkey and hang up decorations.

'Aiko is like any woman, she enjoys getting new clothes,' he said.

'I loved buying them for her too.'

Link via Nerdcore | Photo: Bancroft Media | Previously on Neatorama: Man Weds Virtual Girlfriend

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AdFreak has a list of the thirty strangest commercials of 2009. The above video is a Swedish commercial for McDonald's featuring children who express their impatience with a long car trip in a particularly creepy way.

Link via TigerHawk

Jeremy Barker of The Ampersand gives us the run-down on saints, demons, and other mythical figures associated with Christmas throughout Western history. Pictured above is "The Lord of Misrule":

In medieval England a low-ranking servant was appointed Master of Ceremonies for the midwinter revelries. This tradition originates in the Roman festival of Saturnalia, where the social order was turned on its head for a week.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2009/12/24/christmas-folklore-saints-and-demons.aspx | Image: Dean Tweed

A simple, but unusual and elegant design: a bridge in the city of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands uses two arms to swing a section of road in and out of place. It's called the "Slauerhoffbrug" and was built in 2000.

Image Gallery and Aerial View via The Presurfer | Photo: Frozenly

In the Star Trek universe, synthehol is a substance that simulates the taste of alcohol without its inebriating effects. Three and a half years ago, Alex mentioned that a British pharmacologist named David Nutt claimed that such a substance was hypothetically possible. Now Nutt is leading a research team at Imperial College London to develop this drug:

Prof Nutt and his team are concentrating their efforts on benzodiazepines, of which diazepam, the chief ingredient of Valium is one.

Thousands of candidate benzos are already known to science. He said it is just a matter of identifying the closest match and then, if necessary, tailoring it to fit society’s needs.[...]

“I’ve been in experiments where I’ve taken benzos,” said Professor Nutt. “One minute I was sedated and nearly asleep, five minutes later I was giving a lecture.

“No one’s ever tried targeting this before, possibly because it will be so hard to get it past the regulators.

“Most of the benzos are controlled under the Medicines Act. The law gives a privileged position to alcohol, which has been around for 3,000 years. But why not use advances in pharmacology to find something safer and better?”

Link via io9 | Image: Paramount

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In this variation on Dr. Seuss' classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rorschach from Watchmen punishes the people of New York City for their Christmas cheer. I'm not sure who the author is, but I've seen it vaguely referenced to the posters at 4chan -- and I'm not about to go searching that site to find out for sure.

via Popped Culture

Apparently, there's rising demand in the UK for monocles. In The Express, Adam Edwards writes:

The optician Vision Express has announced it is to re-introduce the single eye-glass following a sudden surge of interest among customers. “To our surprise we have had dozens of requests in the last few months so we thought we’d bring back the monocle on a trial basis,” says Bryan Magrath, the chief executive of Vision Express. “We’re as puzzled as anyone by the interest.”[...]

“It is always thought of an affectation,” says His Honour Judge Quentin Edwards who has used the glass most of his adult life. “But it is quite simply a clever device to help read small print or study something in detail. It is a quick and easy alternative to reading glasses and it is far more practical than carrying a pair of spectacles. I pull out my monocle to read the telephone directory, look at a menu or when I need to glance quickly at a document in court.

“You put it in your strong eye in the same way you use your strong eye to look through a microscope or fire a rifle.It is something you put in the eye when there is a need to magnify something. It is only in fiction that anybody wears a monocle all the time.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: The Express

Jin Zhang, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, is developing contact lenses that change color with the user's blood sugar level. This could allow diabetics to monitor themselves without frequent blood samples. The technology:

...uses extremely small nanoparticles embedded into the hydrogel lenses. These engineered nanoparticles react with glucose molecules found in tears, causing a chemical reaction that changes their colour.

http://www.nano.org.uk/news/index.php?article=319 via io9 | Image: NASA

The Danish design firm Diffus created a dress equipped with LED lights and a carbon dioxide detector that glows as the CO₂ level rises. It's called the Climate Dress:

The embroidery becomes functional conveying electricity and computer information and thereby give "power to the dress". The dress senses the CO2 concentration in the air, then accordingly creates diverse light patterns varying from slow, regular light pulsations to short and hectic.[...]

The Climate Dress also contributes to the necessity of creating more awareness about environmental issues trough an esthetical representation of environmental data. Different light patterns are thereby staged as dramatic “micro events” embedded into clothes. They diligently and without concession tell us disturbing stories wrapped into a comfortable and reassuring cocoon de luxe.

http://www.diffus.dk/pollutiondress/intro.htm via Technabob | Image: Diffus

This picture by reddit user license plate is jam-packed with Internet memes. Can you identify them all? Click on the link to view a larger size.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ

UPDATE 12/23/09: Altered to give credit to the artist. Thanks Reechard!