Researchers at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands have recently grown synthetic pork meat in a laboratory setting. Lois Rogers writes for The Times:

The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.

So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.

They initially extracted cells from the muscle of a live pig. Called myoblasts, these cells are programmed to grow into muscle and repair damage in animals.

The cells were then incubated in a solution containing nutrients to encourage them to multiply indefinitely. This nutritious “broth” is derived from the blood products of animal foetuses, although the intention is to come up with a synthetic solution.

Link via Popular Science | Image: US Department of the Interior

It's a simple and elegant concept: saw a coconut in two, then reattach the halves with a zipper. The result is an instant handbag. These are popular crafts for sale to tourists on Lamu Island off the coast of Kenya.

Link via Make | Photo: AfricaGadget

The Medium Awards is an annual materials sciences recognition program in the UK. Cliff Kuang of Fast Company has a slideshow of seven winners, including a carbon fiber alternative made from carrots, a sponge that absorbs oil but not water, and a very lightweight substitute for kevlar. Pictured above is an inflatable tent made from concrete-embedded cloth. Just add water, and it turns into a hardened structure.

Link | Photo: Concrete Canvas

(YouTube Link)

This video shows four different levels of Super Mario Bros. in which the sound effects were synchronized to play four different musical parts in the Queen song "Don't Stop Me Now." If that explanation doesn't make sense, it will about a minute into the video. Its origin is a little unclear, as the information is in Japanese. I'll update as I learn more.

via Geekologie

Inspired by this scene from the BBC show The Young Ones, the how-to blog Instructables turned an old VCR into a functional toaster. It even prints "VHS" on the face of every piece of bread toasted. Video at the link.

Link via Geek Crafts | Image: Instructables

Photo: Podkayne Studios

Etsy seller Podkayne Studios sells nativity sets that remember the Christmas story just a little bit differently. Dinosaur, Star Wars, Pokémon, Indiana Jones and other themes are available.

Link via Geekologie

Photo: Olivier Kosta-Théfaine

Paris-based artist Olivier Kosta-Théfaine burns images into ceilings using only a cigarette lighter. His medium is an extension of a common form of street art in the neighborhood in which he grew up. Pictured above is an untitled piece created in Brussels in 2007. You can view more images and read an interview with the artist at the link.

Link via DudeCraft | Artist's Website | Video Interview with the Artist

Steve Irvine makes ceramic pinhole cameras. He writes "I like the organic look of these cameras which contrasts with our usual notions of cameras being machine-made, high tech devices." The cameras are quite functional, as you can see from the photograph below, taken with the camera above.



Link via Make | Photos: Steve Irvine

The zoo of Warsaw, Poland, has a pair of prehistoric humans (or actors depicting them) on display over the weekend:

Organiser Maria Mastalerz says the weeklong "performance" aims to attract interest in a play, "Caveman," showing in the Polish capital. But she says it also carries a message that humans today are not all that different from their prehistoric ancestors.

Dressed in furs and animal skins, the young woman and man smoked a fish over a fire Friday, poking it with a stick, or stared from behind bars at startled zoo visitors.

Video at the link.

Link via Stuff | Photo: AP

Image: Maureen Alarid

Maureen Alarid of Off Beat Bride created this invitation for her wedding, featuring Admiral Ackbar's prudent advice about marriage. Alarid writes:

The wording [on the back] is my favorite part. It reads: '[We] request the honor of your presence as two geeks save the princess, resist the dark side and pledge their lives (extra, or otherwise) to each other.' And we snuck a Hyrulian crest in there too!

Link via Geekologie

The food blog Eating the Road presents this handy flow chart that you can use whilst shopping for cereal. Which cereal should you buy? The chart allows you to factor in issues such as current state of intoxication, nationality, ChurckNorrishood, and cultural pretentiousness. Larger image at the link.

Link via Radley Balko

Yeah, but they're teddy bears that eat people, so don't feel too bad. Brian Murphy of CollegeHumor put together five Facebook update pages as though they had been written by Star Wars characters.

http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1794889 via Hell in a Handbasket

(YouTube Link)

The Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the University of Bristol, UK has built a robot that senses obstacles not with cameras, but sensitive whiskers at the front end:

Researchers at the University of Bristol in England hope to deploy the poodle-size ‘bot in search-and-rescue missions where vision is impaired, like in mines or smoky rooms. Its 18 whiskers move back and forth five times per second. When a whisker bends, a sensor on its shaft signals software to orient the ’bot toward the object. Whiskers close to an object move less, while those farther away make wide, sweeping motions to establish the object’s exact edges.

http://www.popsci.com/bown/2009/product/scratchbot | Bristol Robotics Laboratory

Scottish brewery BrewDog has released its newest beer, named Tactical Nuclear Penguin. At 32% alcohol content, it's the world's strongest beer:

A warning on the label states: "This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost."

However Jack Law, of Alcohol Focus Scotland, described it was a "cynical marketing ploy" and said: "We want to know why a brewer would produce a beer almost as strong as whisky."

The beer has been launched on the day alcohol was at the top of the political agenda with the unveiling of the Scottish government's Alcohol Bill including proposals for minimum pricing on drink.

Link via Geekologie | Image: BBC News

Photo: Qiao Chang

Qiao Chang of SmugMug is a commercial photographer who creates origami figures as a hobby. One of her works takes the form of a mathematical puzzle called a Soma cube:

A solid dissection puzzle invented by Piet Hein during a lecture on Quantum Mechanics by Werner Heisenberg. There are seven soma pieces composed of all the irregular face-joined cubes (polycubes) with *=4 cubes. The object is to assemble the pieces into a cube. There are 240 essentially distinct ways of doing so (Beeler 1972, Berlekamp et al. 1982), as first enumerated one rainy afternoon in 1961 by J. H. Conway and Mike Guy.

http://qiaochang.smugmug.com/Other/My-Origami-Collection/8551061_krjgW#563203570_dFKUD-O-LB via GearFuse | Soma Cube Explanation