Images: IMMD

It Made My Day (IMMD) is a blog of reader-submitted anecdotes about the funny experiences that made their day. On the right-side of the page, you can type in your own "moment of win" and vote on other submissions -- sort of like the Neatorama Upcoming Queue.

Link via Urlesque

Amanda Bensen of the Smithsonian blog Food & Think attended a program at that institution on the history of beer. Her post summarizes the long history of the beverage, from prehistoric soggy bread to modern microbrewing.

But while beer’s popularity waned in the Middle East, it was gaining ground in northern Europe. People there somehow figured out brewing (perhaps via another soggy-bread epiphany) by at least 800 B.C., based on beer residues in a Celtic amphora found in modern Bavaria. Dornbusch says the Romans were the first to invent the modern brewing process—involving malting and mashing—based on the ruins of a 179 A.D. brewery discovered in a Roman settlement near what is now Regensburg, Germany.

Link | Image: US National Archives

Why can humans talk and chimpanzees can't? Scientists at UCLA and Emory University suspect that it comes down to a single gene designated FOXP2. There is only a slight variation in this gene between humans and chimps, as Elaine Schmidt writes in UCLA Newsroom:

"Earlier research suggests that the amino-acid composition of human FOXP2 changed rapidly around the same time that language emerged in modern humans," said Dr. Daniel Geschwind, Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Chair in Human Genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Ours is the first study to examine the effect of these amino-acid substitutions in FOXP2 in human cells[...]

"We found that a significant number of the newly identified targets are expressed differently in human and chimpanzee brains," Geschwind said. "This suggests that FOXP2 drives these genes to behave differently in the two species."

The research demonstrates that mutations believed to be important to FOXP2's evolution in humans change how the gene functions, resulting in different gene targets being switched on or off in human and chimp brains.

Link via io9 | Image: US Department of Energy

(Video Link)

Graffiti artist Tony Quan suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and is unable to move any part of his body other than his eyes. But thanks to an open source computer project called EyeWriter, he can still draw. The technology tracks the movements of his eyes, allows him to select different shapes and colors, and then projects his images onto the sides of buildings. The above video is a selection from a documentary about the project.

Link via Gizmodo

British medical researchers are working on growing human embryos that would have three parents: the father's sperm, the mother's egg nucleus, and another mother's egg cytoplasm. In The Daily Telegraph, Richard Alleyne writes:

IVF often fails in older women because there are abnormalities in the outside of their eggs, known as cytoplasm, which surrounds the nucleus.

The team at St Mother Hospital in Kitakyushu, Japan, believe one way around the problem would be too implant the healthy nucleus - which contains most of the information to produce a baby - into the cytoplasm of a donor, usually a younger mother.

The team successfully did this in 31 eggs and of these seven formed "early stage embryos" when injected with sperm in a test tube.

Link via Popular Science | Image: NIH

Photo: J.B. Spector/Museum of Science and Industry

The Galaxy Dress is composed of 24,000 LEDs, each measuring two by two millimeters, attached to four layers of chiffon and forty layers of crinoline. The whole thing can be powered by a few iPod batteries for up to an hour. It's one of the recent creations of CuteCircuit, a design firm specializing in "wearable technology." The dress is now on permanent display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. More pictures at the link.

Link via Fast Company | CuteCircuit

Scientists at the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery in Melbourne, Australia, are developing an implantable device that they hope will regenerate lost breast tissue. In The Daily Telegraph, Bonnie Malkin writes:

During the world-first trial surgeons will implant a chamber containing a sample of the woman's fat tissue into the chest, which will act a "scaffolding" into which new breast tissue will grow.

"What we are hoping to do in the next two years is develop a biodegradable chamber so that the fat can grow inside the chamber and then the chamber will vanish naturally," Dr Marzella said.

"Nature abhors a vacuum, so the chamber itself, because it is empty, it tends to be filled in by the body."

Dr Marzella said the new breasts would feel normal to the patient.

The trial is believed to be just the second time in the world tissue engineering has been carried out in a human.

Link via Popular Science | Image: NASA

(YouTube Link)

Kyle Evans created a electric didgeridoo that can be performed wirelessly through a bluetooth transmission to his computer:

I created this instrument to experiment in the combination of the organic sound qualities of a didgeridoo with the advanced signal processing capabilities of modern computer programming and sound synthesis. This custom built didgeridoo features externally mounted modules that allow the performer to process and manipulate the sound of the instrument in real time. All control data is transmitted wirelessly via blue tooth and is controlling several audio processes created in a custom-built software environment.

You can view complete schematics for the instrument and videos of live performances at Evans' blog.

via Make | Evans' blog about the project

Photo: Martus & SilvioWith this fist warhammer, you'll be the talk of any LARP session that you attend. The design studio Martus & Silvio in Grand Rapids, Michigan made this fist-styled, three foot long, cast iron hammer. They've got other cool items of metal work at their site, too, such as a monkey wrench that looks like a human hand.

Link via Make |Monkey wrench that looks like a human hand

Photo: flickr user Sifter

This Mona Lisa made out of motherboards decorates the headquarters of the computer maker Asus in Taipei. It serves as an expression of that company's desire to retake its position as the world's largest motherboard manufacturer. More pictures at the link.

Link via Make | PBS news report

Blogger Kenny Pearce is developing a bibliography of works of science fiction that are particularly noteworthy for expressing a philosophical worldview or premise. He presents several categories, such as Mind, Solipsism, and Sex and Gender. Some of the stories that he lists are available online, like Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question" -- a confrontation with entropy.

Pearce asks readers for suggestions. What would you add to the list?

Link | The Last Question | Image: NIH

In 1971, Gerald Mayo sued Satan in U.S. District Court, alleging that the Dark One had interfered in his life, causing him harm. Judge Weber dismissed the case, arguing that Mayo had failed to serve process of the suit to Satan, and that the court lacked jurisdiction over the defendant. Kevin Underhill's legal humor blog has a copy of the decision:

Civil rights action against Satan and his servants who allegedly placed deliberate obstacles in plaintiff's path and caused his downfall, wherein plaintiff prayed for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The District Court, Weber, J., held that plaintiff would not be granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis who in view of questions of personal jurisdiction over defendant, propriety of class action, and plaintiff's failure to include instructions for directions as to service of process.

Prayer denied.

The case was later used as a precedent during a case against God.

Link via Grow A Brain | Photo: flickr user Forever Wiser

Photo: Marcus Tremonto

Designer Marcus Tremonto created a lamp made out of carbon fiber. He selected this material for the Carbon 451 Lamp because it is strong enough to support its own weight but thin enough to present the aesthetic qualities Tremonto wanted:

When asked by art gallery owner Patrick Brillet to design a piece out of Carbon Fiber, we decided to celebrate and utilize the best of the materials true physical properties, its strength and lightness. The complexity of curves and required thinness could not be duplicated in any other material while still maintaining its ability to support itself completely[...]

More pictures at the link.

Link via Gizmodo | Artist's Website

Photo: Unica

Andreas Dober's wall clock for the German luxury shop Anthologie Quartett cycles a bicycle chain to display the hour with copper digits at the top. A custom job, it prices out at $2,338.

http://www.unicahome.com/catalog/item.asp?id=47558 via Make | Anthologie Quartett

Photo: Design Boom

In 1979, Japan built its first capsule hotel -- an inn with rooms consisting of little more than a bed, and certainly not enough room to stand up. Now developers in Kyoto are contrasting that minimalist approach with luxury furnishings at the 9h Hotel, which will open in December. It's called 9h because users are expected to shower, sleep for seven hours, and then rest in a nine-hour period -- although you can rent your room for up to seventeen hours at a time. Each pod comes with customizable lighting to help lull you to sleep and then gently wake you.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/8111/9-h-nine-hours-capsule-hotel-in-kyoto.html via Fast Company (where there are pictures of a similar endeavor in Manhattan)