That stands for "vertical take off and landing", not in the way that a helicopter does, but more like the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey in the U.S. military inventory. As the U.S. Air Force is moving toward a greater role for unmanned aircraft, the Excalibur could have a production future:

The unmanned aerial system (UAS) could pack a 400-pound payload of four Hellfire missiles, and also deliver weapons or other supplies to warfighters deep in rough territory. Its design allows it to have a maximum speed of 460 mph, but also have the ability to loiter overhead at just 115 mph.

http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-07/unmanned-hover-aircraft-takes-first-flight (where you can find a video of a 1/2 scale version in flight)

Cartoonist Arthur Jones writes stories through text and doodles on Post-It Notes, then reads his stories live to audiences as his cartoons scroll in the background. There are a few on his site, but my favorite is actually a translation of Jonathan Goldstein's "Man Not Superman". This is the story of the ordinary guy who dates Lois Lane after she breaks up with Superman, and tries to overcome his feelings of inadequacy. Jones' comics just make this funny story even funnier.

Official Website

Man Not Superman (text version)

Via io9

Artist Franco Brambilla depicts scenes of pleasant, everyday life during and after aliens have conquered the Earth. To do so, he superimposes aliens over actual postcards of serene landscapes. It's like Norman Rockwell like drunk one night and woke up the next morning in bed with Frank R. Paul.

Link via io9

Since scientists are out to kill us again, what with flesh-eating robots, ethicists and roboticists have called for revisions to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

A human-robot co-existence society could emerge by 2030, says Chen in his paper. Already iRobot’s Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and Scooba floor cleaner are a part of more than 3 million American households. The next generation robots will be more sophisticated and are expected to provide services such as nursing, security, housework and education.

These machines will have the ability to make independent decisions and work reasonably unsupervised. That’s why, says Chen, it may be time to decide who regulates robots.

If it was up to you, what laws would you program into robots?

Link

German daredevil Dirk Auer established a new world record when he raced down a 860-meter wood roller coaster track in under a minute. He maintained an average speed of 56 mph on custom skates that he built himself:

'After this some of the sides were so high that at times I was at 90 degrees and so it was very important to have as much traction as possible. Luckily everything went according to plan - it was a lot of fun.'

Mr Auer, from Gross-Gerau near Frankfurt, is considered to be the most extreme in-line skater in the world.

He already holds the world record for reaching speeds of 190mph as he was dragged along behind a Porsche GT2.

Link via Hell in a Handbasket

As an assignment, Professor Daniel Fletcher of the University of California at Berkeley instructed students to build a functional microscope from a cell phone and a few lenses. When they completed the project, Fletcher and his students realized that they had a useful product, which they named the Cellscope. They hope to use the instrument in impoverished areas of the world where malaria, sickle-cell anemia, and tuberculosis are widespread. In such places, large numbers of microscopes are necessary for diagnosis, but remain very expensive. The Cellscope can be a cheaper alternative to fit this need.

Link

(YouTube Link)

The Schweeb is an experimental transit system in New Zealand that combines the bicycle and a monorail track. Users lie down individual pods and work the pedals to move forward:

Our proposal to get you safely and quickly from one point in the city to another would be to elevate you onto a network of interconnected monorails where you never have to stop at traffic lights. The ideal vehicle for such a system already exists. Fully faired recumbent cycles, because of their low aerodynamic resistance, are breaking all bicycle speed records and currently reaching speeds of 90 kph (56 mph) in sprints. Suspending these comfortable and highly efficient machines from monorail tracks has the added advantage of taking away the rolling resistance of pneumatic tyres. Trains of Shweebs can further reduce the aero drag – ten people travelling at 40 kph will each have a lot less work to do than a single rider at the same speed. A single rider requires only a fraction of the energy to achieve the same speed as a normal cyclist – thanks to the significant reductions in both aero drag and tire friction. The vehicle is completely weatherproof, you can't derail or fall out while on the cellphone or blackberry!

Link

(YouTube Link)

A biotech company named InSightec is developing a surgical technique that uses focused ultrasound waves instead of scalpels to destroy tumors:

Machinery like this had previously been used to treat some cancers, for example in the uterus and breast. But until now, the distorting effects brought about by the skull's thickness has made it impossibly tricky to focus the beams onto the brain while also maintaining the required accuracy.

InSightec's technology solves that by using over a thousand individually focused transducers, which broadcast the ultrasonic beams. But it's not like shooting a laser into a person's head--rather, the beams raise the temperature of the location being treated by about forty degrees, or just enough to kill the diseased cells. A built-in cooling system keeps the brain from cooking like an egg overheating.

Link

(Video Link)

Artist Thomas Thwaites is trying to build a toaster from scratch from the original raw materials -- which he mined himself. Here is a video about his efforts to smelt iron ore at home. He's doing so as a reflection upon a line from Douglas Adams' novel Mostly Harmless: "Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it."

Link via Ace of Spades

Official Website

Can a dramatic prairie dog be fine art? If you're looking for squirrels in underpants or zombies in romantic moonlight, then this oil painting and others like it are for you. They're availabe at McPhee. I can't find a general directory of these meme-themed works, but if you look at the related products section at the link, you'll find more more like it.

Link via Nerd Approved

Fast Company has a slideshow of unusual buildings in which people live or work, using unique materials or shapes. These include high-grade bricks made from cow dung, a house made from hemp (pictured), a building made from shipping containers, and one designed like a concert hall.

Link

(YouTube Link)

Researchers are Carnegie Mellon University are developing touchscreens that are textured to provide a variety of different shapes for users to interact with. If I understand this video correctly, this is more than just a shaped screen. The buttons on a single screen can actually change shape to present different types of interfaces. This technology could be very useful for the visually-impaired or people who want to use a machine while looking at something else.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-07/your-next-touchscreen-might-come-inflatable-buttons

VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies, a biotech start-up, has developed a tiny telescope that has can implanted into the eyes of people suffering from macular degeration:

Last week, an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended that the agency approve the implant. Clinical trials of the device, which is about the size of a pencil eraser, suggest it can improve vision by about three and a half lines on an eye chart...Once inside the eye, it works like a fixed telephoto lens, acting in conjunction with the cornea to project a magnified image of whatever the wearer is looking at over a large part of the retina. Because only the central parts of the retina are damaged in the disease, magnifying the image on the eye allows the retinal cells outside the macula to detect the object and send that information to the brain.

Link via The Presurfer

Matt Neary of Fargo, North Dakota found that a thief had stolen CDs and his wallet out of his truck -- but he did leave a pleasant note complimenting Neary's taste in music:

You have amazing taste in music.
Don't worry about your credit cards and diver's license -- I know I can't use them...after tonight, at least.

Seriously though
Lock your car in the future

http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_video.asp?news=32159 (local news video) via Nothing To Do With Arbroath

When one of the two toilets on the International Space Station broke, io9 blogger Lauren Davis was inspired to write about the toilets (or utter lack thereof) in various science fiction movies, TV shows, and books.  She rounds up the commodes from Star Trek, Lexx, Babylon 5, Galaxy Quest, Firefly, and others.

Apparently on the Enterprise-D, there was only one toilet, and the post includes a video of Jonathan Frakes pointing it out on a schematic of the ship.

Link

image by flickr user Richard Freedman used under creative commons license