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This is obviously a case of life or death, from the kitten’s point of view. -via Cynical-C

A monkey at the University of Pittsburgh is able to use a robotic arm to feed himself using only the power of brain signals.

"It's the first time a monkey--or a human--is directly, with their brain, controlling a real prosthetic arm," says Krishna Shenoy, a neuroscientist at Stanford University who was not involved in the research.

People who suffer from strokes or spinal cord injury, or from some neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), are often left paralyzed. But their cerebral cortices--the parts of the brain that control movement, planning, and other functions--may remain largely intact. Scientists hope to capitalize on that with the development of brain machine interfaces--devices that convert brain activity into action, such as movement of a cursor on a computer screen.

Two monkeys in the experiment had previously learned to move the robotic arm using a joystick. In the brain wave experiment, their arms were temporarily restrained. Link (with video) -Thanks, Bill!

A fossil fish, estimated at 380 million years old, has been discovered in the act of giving birth. The fish and her offspring died while still connected by an umbilical cord.

Dubbed "mother fish" by the scientists who discovered her in northwestern Australia, Materpiscis attenboroughi is not only an entirely new genus and species, but pushes back the first known case of live birth in the animal kingdom by some 200 million years.

The discovery is also the earliest evidence so far of internal fertilization, or sex with penetration. Other fish species from the Middle Palaeozoic Era laid eggs. Link -via J-Walk Blog

(image credit: Museum Victoria)

Analogy is the name of a clock by designer Jesson Yip.

Analogy is a typographic clock which fuses the immediacy of digital with the visual-spatial quality of analogue into a new hybrid format. Presenting an everyday object with a fresh twist.

See it in action. Link -Thanks, Bill!

Cracked has a rundown of 5 scientists who performed experiments on themselves and and one facility that will make you cringe. Usually I recommend an article based on the subject matter (which is fascinating here), but this one is also fun to read for the inspired hyperbole of the writing.

Here we look at seven self-endangering scientists who only wear lab coats because you can't get explosive-bear-proof tuxedos outside of MI6. Each one of these researchers has been voted "Most likely to inject themselves with the Omega Serum while shouting, 'Dammit, there's no time for testing!'"

It’s from Cracked, so heed a warning for language. Pictured is Albert Hoffman, the only featured scientist most people are familiar with. Link

A fish over eight feet long is thought to be the largest line-caught halibut ever! Fisherman Soren Bec landed the fish off the coast of Norway after a “titanic struggle.” The trophy measure 8’ 1” and weighs 31 stone (434 pounds). Link -via Digg

You name it, and somewhere there’s a place where you can buy it right out of a machine! Let’s take a look at some of the weirder vending machines you can stick your money into.

Medical Marijuana

Medical marijuana can be purchased from a vending machine in California. Yes, you have to have a prescription. In order to use the machines, you have to have an ID card, and you’ll be fingerprinted and photographed by a security guard at the machine site. See a video report here.

Nathan’s Hot Dogs

Nathan's Famous hot dogs in Coney Island is the site of the annual July 4th hot dog eating contest. Soon, New Yorkers will be able to get the famous dogs from a vending machine! They’ll be kosher, as the machines are run by Kosher Vending Industries, which already makes kosher pizza and other items available by machine. Only selected Nathan’s locations currently sell dogs with rabbinical oversight.

iPods

The Atlanta airport is home to a Zoom Shop machine that sells iPod Minis and Shuffles, along with batteries and digital cameras. There are similar machines at other airports. Have your credit card ready, this probably doesn’t take quarters! (image credit: sbisson)

Pet Supplies

The Hey Buddy! company makes vending machines that sell dog supplies, such as dog food, leashes, flea collars, chew toys, treats, waste bag holders and refills, and purified water. Check for a location near you.

Live Bait

Fishermen get up and go earlier than bait shop owners prefer, so the idea of a live bait vending machine makes sense, even if it seems weird. In 1993, fisherman Joe Meyer converted an old sandwich machine to a bait machine and sold it to a shop owner, who now has 30 machines and sells 10,000 night crawlers every week! Bait machines are refrigerated, and the bait is sealed in plastic bags with an oxygen tablet added.

Crow Food

They don’t expect you to buy food for crows; this machine is for the crows to use! The point of the experiment is to create a device that will train crows to pick up change dropped on the ground and exchange it for peanuts, using this specially-designed vending machine. See a video here.

Pornography, Beer, and Eggs

Japan is vending machine heaven. You can get pretty much anything you like from vending machines. Sometimes a row of vending machines will replace an entire store! There are vending machines that sell pornography, bread in a can, and even fresh eggs. There are reports of fetish items still for sale in Japanese vending machines, if you know where to look.

Cigarette for Adults Only

Cigarette machines are only seen in antique stores in America these days, but they are still used in Japan, where the legal age to buy tobacco is twenty. New technology is being developed to keep underage smokers from using the machines. New machines require a “taspo” (tobacco passport) card, an ID issued by the Tobacco Institute of Japan. Manufacturer Fujitaka has another machine in development that uses face-recognition software to “see” how old the buyer is. The face recognition is around 90% accurate in judging a person’s age. It has yet to be approved for public use.

Toilet Paper

No, you don’t get to go for free everywhere. Some places still have coin-operated toilets. In Japan, you can use the facilities, but you’ll have to pay for the paper, at least in some public areas. But you might get lucky: Japanese businesses often hand out free samples as part of their advertising budget, since the individual packets have advertising printed on them.

Live Lobster Claw Game

This machine in Osaka is not exactly a vending machine -it’s a claw game! You pay your money and test your skills at catching a live lobster, which is also the prize. Have fun carrying it home!

Coke

Vending machines are so popular in Japan that they’ve been made into a popular toy, which in turn was the inspiration for these life size Coke Bots!

In the comics, Wolverine painfully pops his claws out right through his skin, and when they retract, his skin heals up. There’s a group of frogs in Africa that do the same thing!

The frogs defend themselves with sharp bone claws on their hind feet but to do so, the animals have to drive the claws through their own skin. It's an extreme defence that is completely unique in the animal world.

The clawed frogs belong to a family called Arthroleptidae that were discovered in Central Africa more than a century ago. At first, people wondered if the claws just stuck through the skin as a side effect of the preservation process. Alternatively, the frogs may have used them to grip or climb. Their true function as defensive weapons only became clear when naturalists first described actually picking up and handling live animals.

Doing so is a mistake, and anyone who makes it is punished with a series of deep, bleeding wounds inflicted by the struggling animal as it kicks out violently with its claws. The ability is well known to the people of Cameroon, who only ever hunt the frogs with machetes or spears.

Scientists are still not sure what happens to surviving frogs after the claws are no longer needed. Link

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This video remix stars Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and Leslie Caron dancing to Michael Jackson’s "Smooth Criminal". The dance sequences were taken from the 1953 film The Band Wagon and the 1955 film Daddy Long Legs. -via Boing Boing

Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss tests your food knowledge. In each question, you are given two items and you decide which has more calories. I only scored 40%, but every question I missed had an item I’m not familiar with. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/15275

While we are on the subject of funny-looking yellow busses, how about this Topsy-Turvy bus? Created by car artist Tom Kennedy, the bus toured the US last year to “dramatically depict America’s upside down budget priorities”. Link

14-year-old Sam Hawthorne was bitten by a shark in his sleep! He was sleepwalking one night and walked right into a trophy shark’s head that was hanging on his bedroom wall. His mother found him bleeding from a wound on the cheek, and the shark still imbedded in his face.

'The shark must have been embedded in Sam's cheek for about 15 minutes and he was in a lot of pain,' she said.

Fortunately, Sam escaped with just a small scar. 'It was the most frightening experience of my life,' he said.

Link -via Arbroath

Working from home is not easy, but it’s easier when you have an office you can use just for work. If you have a shed or room to build one, it can become a home office away from the distractions of the house. Here are twenty such shed offices that have been customized to the max. I’ll take the Manhattan rooftop shed! Pictured is a greenhouse that was converted to an office. Link

Toyota and subsidiary Hino Motors are joining forces with Japan Rail Hokkaido to develop vehicles that can drive on roads and railways. The DMV (Dual Mode Vehicle) has rubber tires and steel wheels, and can convert in about 15 seconds. They began testing the vehicles 18 months ago.

Combing the versatility of a bus with the speed of a train has allowed Japan Rail to tailor routes and services to the communities it serves. Rather than scuttling service on under-utilized lines, Japan Rail has simply switched to smaller vehicles.

Dual-mode vehicles would be a great addition to America's mass transit infrastructure. It would make rail transit feasible in those areas that don't have the population density to support a lot of stations, and make mass transit a more viable option for exurbs. Riders could simply hop on at a bus stop in their neighborhood, then ride the rails to their destination.

The new vehicles also use a lot less diesel fuel than conventional busses. http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/half-bus-half-t.html

(image credit: NeiTech)

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If you are still not sure that cell phones are evil, this should convince you. Don’t ever try this! -via the Presurfer