Mars Had an Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere 4 Billion Years Ago

Though chances are Curiosity is going to come up empty-handed as far as living, potentially breathing Martians are concerned, four billion years ago might have told a very different tale. After recently examining meteorites and rocks from Mars, scientists have discovered that not only did Mars once have an oxygen-rich atmosphere, but it was developed over one billion years before Earth's.

Some of the rocks in question actually came from NASA's Spirit Mars rover, which scientists compared to Martian meteorites that had crash landed on Earth. Spirit's rocks, which came from a 3.7 billion-year-old section of the planet, show signs of early exposure to oxygen before they sank back into the terrain. The Martian meteorites, though, came from deep within the surface, which is why they appear virtually unaffected by any sort of oxygen-containing atmosphere.

Most exciting about this discovery, though, is the fact that an oxygen-rich environment is a very strong indicator for life. On Earth, we know that oxygen levels slowly increased thanks to photosynthesizing microbes, which just as well may have been the case on Mars. According to Professor Bernard Wood of Oxford University:

As oxidation is what gives Mars its distinctive colour, it is likely that the 'red planet' was wet, warm, and rusty billions of years before Earth's atmosphere became oxygen-rich.

Though it may still be mostly speculative at this point, there's a decent chance that all those wonderful pictures Curiosity beams down could actually be a peek into our planet's red, dusty future. More here.

Hidden iOS 7 Settings Reveal What Apple Is Working On

How to actually access the hidden settings is unclear as it doesn't appear to be readily available to everyone with the beta. The above video shows a handful of nice-to-have tweaks like the ability to nest folders within folders now that iOS 7 has pages within folders. You can even hide pre-installed apps!

Other hidden gems include gestures that are activated from corners or swipes from the edge. The latter of which can already be found in Mail and Safari, for instance. As 9to5Mac points out, we could see these new-to-iOS gestures for quicker app switching later on but not much else, as the settings are hidden and likely only for internal use. More here.

Why Haven't Mugs Told Us the Coffee's Temperature Until Now?

If you've got $38 to spare and a few weeks to wait for delivery, Brando's got a new temperature sensing travel mug that guarantees you'll never again burn your mouth on scalding hot coffee—or accidentally sip a stale brew that's gone cold.

A built-in thermometer lets the insulated mug report back how hot or cold its contents are via a two-digit LCD display on the outside. But if you can't make hide nor hare of the metric system mumbo jumbo it uses to display the temperature, the mug also has a heart on its side that glows blue, orange, or red, visually indicating how hot or cold your beverage is. Just don't expect your lawsuit against McDonald's to hold up when you're holding indisputable evidence your coffee was too hot to drink. More here.

They've Invented a Twist-Off Wine Cork and Life Will Never Be the Same

Just when you thought that mankind's genius could go no further, four years of research has given birth to a new apex in cork innovation. Please say hello to your newest wine-stopper, the Helix cork.

The product of a collaboration beween the industrious lushes at cork manufacturer Amorim and those at bottle-making company O-I, the new threaded, resealable design (and matching threaded bottle neck) is aimed at the "popular premium" wine market, which includes bottles that retail for between $8-$15, roughly. And while four years of research may seem a tad excessive, much of that time was spent waiting... and waiting... and waiting some more, allowing them to see whether or not the new cork had any effect on taste, aroma, or color. (Spoiler: it didn't.)

This kind of testing was necessary because the agglomerated type of cork used in the Helix is atypical of wine manufacturing. Since cork is cellular in nature, the presence of open spaces in a common, straight cork stopper is ideal—it allows the wine to fill those spaces, expand the cork, and form a tight seal. However, agglomerated cork is more granular, meaning fewer open spaces and less room for expansion. This would be a problem with a normal stopper, but the threaded design of the Helix creates its own tight seal, meaning oxygen can't escape on the sides while the density of the stopper prevents oxygen from escaping through the cork itself.

And its resealability is a major plus in the eyes of consumers, who want the convenience of a resealable container but still prefer cork to other methods of wine stoppering such as screw tops. According to Erik Bouts, O-I Europe president:

Cork is still by far the preferred stopper. Our research has found that at least 80% of consumers prefer the cork and glass combination for their wine. It has the highest-quality image in the market and now we have made it easier to use. And it is still the most sustainable option.

The Helix cork is being unveiled at Vinexpo in Bordeaux today, although its creators say it may still be two years before we start seeing it on shelves. So if you must have your fancy corks, until the day comes that we can leave the cork screws behind and securely reseal wine with ease, it seems your best option is to just finish the bottle. No one said being classy came easy. More here.

Origami-Inspired Clocks So Attention-Grabbing, You'll Never Run Late

Sometimes a piece of design is so interesting, it's hard not to drop everything and pay attention to it. Dressed in bright, bold colors, with sharp, tessellated forms, these origami clocks from U.K. firm Raw Dezign definitely fits the bill.

The clocks come in turquoise, yellow, and cream, and you can pick from gold, black, or silver hands. Each one is cast in resin, and the tickers are hand molded to give each clock face its own custom look. They go for $78 and ship in two to three weeks (because, you know how custom work goes). They're eye-catching, one-of-a-kind, and infinitely more interesting than clock of the run-of-the-mill cuckoo variety. More here.

These Stash Coins Are a Fantastic Way to Lose Your SD Card

The Man has his hand in your inbox, cops are intimidating citizens who film them beating other citizens, it's only logical to want to keep the private contents of your SD card, well, private. The Covert Coin from CCS Spy Gear is a precision-machined piece of retired US currency that are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing when closed. Which is great, until you accidentally deposit 16GB of files into a parking meter. More here.

Scientists Have Found the Ancient Secret of Indestructible Concrete

For the most part, we humans are better at things than we were thousands of years ago. But there are some things the ancients had down pat. Roman concrete, for instance, is just way better than anything we can whip up today. Finally, after some 2,000 years, modern-day scientists have figured it out. And it's a secret worth knowing.

Concrete, while often not exactly pretty, is a super important tool of city-building today. We've been using Portland cement (an ingredient in concrete) as a binder for nearly 200 years as a building block of modern architecture, but it just can't hold a candle to that old Roman stuff. There are concrete harbors in Italy that are still doing pretty well after thousands of years. Meanwhile, a modern-day Portland cement structure is lucky to last 50 years when exposed to saltwater.

Now, after years of research in labs across the US and Europe, scientists have figured out that the most robust Roman concrete is a specific mixture of lime and volcanic rock, the details of which have been published in this month's issues of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and American Mineralogist.

The researchers described it this way in a press release on the subject:

The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The lime was hydrated – incorporating water molecules into its structure – and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together.

And it gets even better. Portland cement is environmentally messy to produce, accounting for some seven percent of the C02 modern industry produces. Roman concrete? Much, much greener. There's still a lot of work to be done in adapting traditional Roman construction techniques to today's needs. But the recipe is as good as ever. We just have to get cookin'. More here.

While solar power promises a lot, it's only ever going to help satisfy our energy needs if it becomes efficient enough. Fortunately, Sharp has just made the world's most efficient solar cell, which converts a staggering 44.4 percent of incident light into electricity. Take that, fossil fuels.

The cell uses a special lens-based concentrator system, which focuses sunlight onto the cell to help improve the efficiency Once the light's focussed, a stack of three photo-absorption layers convert it into electricity. Even then it's no mean feat to squeeze out an efficiency of 44.4 percent, and the process saw Sharp invest a huge amount of time in tuning the device's dimensions to focus the light properly and reduce losses between layers.

While it's impressive, you probably won't see one strapped to the roof of a house any time soon. Devices this exotic are more likely to end up on a spacecraft in the first instance, where efficiency trumps cost every time. That's not to say it won't ever make it to the domestic market—it might just take a little time. More here.

Microsoft Office for iOS: Complete Video Walkthrough and Hands On

A Two-Pound Cast Iron Tape Dispenser Guarantees One-Handed Operation

Any task requiring the use of clear tape would be a lot easier if you could snatch a strip of the sticky stuff with just one hand. And while there have been many complicated contraptions that promise exactly that functionality, Black+Blum have found a simpler approach that takes advantage of that perpetual force known as gravity.

For starters, the On a Roll tape dispenser is made from cast iron, and weighs in at a hefty 2.3 pounds. So no matter how hard you pull and yank on a strip of tape, its weight and grippy rubber feet guarantee the tape will break before the dispenser budges. And further taking advantage of gravity, the angled support keeps the roll in place without requiring additional components. Simplicity is the name of the game here, and if you want a tape dispenser that could probably survive a nuclear blast, this would be $44 well spent. More here.

Garbage Can That Looks Like the Mac Pro Is a Hot Item in Japan

Amazon Japan's official Twitter account even jokingly tweeted that the Ideaco garbage can "was not the new Mac Pro".

The gag worked. That tweet was retweeted over thirteen thousand times and favorited nearly three thousand times. And currently, this garbage can is ranked number deux in the online retailer's interior furniture best sellers. It's also Amazon Japan's best selling garbage can.

There are also the inevitable funny Amazon reviews, with people "warning" that this was in fact a garbage can and pointing out that it could not run Thunderbolt 2. There was even a wry worry about how the black cylinder could show dust.

But as one Amazon Japan reviewer noted, "It does have the innovative ability to hide the plastic bag by a concealing cover." Shame it can't run Thunderbolt, though! More here.

Wireless Pillow Speakers Put a Personal Home Theater In Your Bed

You may have spent a small fortune on the impressive home theater setup in your living room, but when you're watching TV in bed, are you really going to settle for the crappy sound coming from its tiny speakers? Of course not. But skip the redundant bedroom surround sound setup and go with these SoftSound pillows which feature a wireless set of stereo speakers built right in.

Instead of opting for Bluetooth, which most TVs don't have built-in anyways, the pillow gets a wireless audio feed from an included RF transmitter that connects to and sits atop your TV. Because the audio out connection on your TV isn't controlled by its remote, the $130pillow comes with its own soft remote that won't hurt if you accidentally roll over onto it, plus a sleep timer to ensure you don't wake up at four in the morning with it blaring in your ears.

Now all we need is someone to develop a sub-woofer mattress for the experience to be complete. More here.

Yep, That's a Helicopter Bicycle

OK, so none of us probably have any use for a flying bike, but it's alright to want one. It's perfectly natural. So just let the wild envy wash over you as this Frankenstein machine takes flight.

Developed by three Czech companies working in unison, the bike was demoed for the first time in Prague today, where it underwent a remote-controlled five-minute flight. The 209-pound rig with its four battery-powered propeller pods isn't quite capable of carrying around a real human being yet, so instead a dummy got the inaugural ride. Hope he enjoyed it.

Clever Trunk Dividers Stop Your Groceries From Taking a Wild Ride

It's all but guaranteed that the most hair-raising drives you'll have will be immediately after you fill the trunk with groceries, plants, and anything else you don't want to topple. But with these $13 Stayhold trunk dividers, you can hand your keys to a Hollywood stuntman and not have to worry about the bread being crushed by a jug of milk.

The solid plastic shields grips your trunks carpeting to keep whatever it's butt-up against securely in place. It can handle cargo as heavy as a toolbox or a suitcase, and unless you're putting air between the tires and the road, everything will be exactly as you organized it when you get to your destination. Now if only they made a version for kids. More here.

There Was Drinkable Water On Mars According To Opportunity

Opportunity, aka The Little Rover That Could, is still making important discoveries 10 years into its Martian jaunt. After the devastating loss of twin rover Spirit in 2011, Opportunity rallied and kept trekking, only to recently discover a fascinating rock near Endurance Crater.

One of the oldest rocks ever analyzed, the specimen shows that drinkable water once existed on Mars. Opportunity identified a type of clay mineral on the rock that is only formed in neutral water, like the water found on Earth. Steve Squyres, the principle Opportunity researcher, noted that Opportunity has found other liquids that could chemically be described as water in the past, but these samples were all closer to sulphuric acid. Curiosity recently found similar evidence of neutral water at Gale Crater. Squyres said:

It is really striking to me, how similar the stories are for the rocks at Gale and Endeavour crater.

Though the desert conditions on Mars have made other Martian water acidic, the findings contribute to theories that Mars may once have been habitable. Nice hustle, Opportunity. Way to be. More here.

All the New iOS Features Your Old iPhone Won't Get

As expected and widely reported ahead of today's keynote, Apple introduced a completely revamped iOS at WWDC. Not only did they ditch the skeuomorphic design scheme in favor of something a little more colorful and fun, the company added a handful of neat new features—some old, some new. But as with any major update to the mobile OS, there are a handful of features that won't be coming to older generation iOS devices. (Hint: It's because Apple wants you to upgrade.) 

Now, according to Apple "features are subject to change" and "not all features are available on all devices." Here's what you're getting and not getting based on each device. (And in some instances some services will be limited to 10 devices.)

AirDrop (which requires an iCloud account): iPhone 5, iPad(4th generation), iPad mini, iPod touch (5th generation)

Siri: iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad (Retina and newer), iPad mini, iPod touch (5th generation)

Panorama: iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (fifth generation)

Square and video formats and swipe to capture: iPhone 4 and newer, iPad 3rd generation and newer, iPad mini, iPod touch (fifth generation)

Filters in Camera: iPhone 5, iPod touch (fifth generation)

Filters in Photos: iPhone 4 and up, iPad (3rd generation and newer)

This Papercraft BBQ Will Make You Hungry Enough to Eat a Notebook

Summertime is upon us, and that means it's grilling season. You could go down to the store to pick up everything you need for a tasty BBQ, or you could just make do with what you can find on your desk. That second option is remarkably nice-lookin' but probably not the most delicious.

This drool-worthy yet stylized piece of art was put together by the French creative team zim & zou, and inspired by some illustrations that lept off the page but not quite into anyone's mouths. They wouldn't do too well on the grill either. Now if you'll excuse me I REALLY have to go get dinner. More here.

What Happens When You Use a Giant Construction Drill on a Car?

It's quite simple really, the car gets completely destroyed, screwed and mangled in every which way possible. The TR-150 construction drill completely eats the car alive to the point where it can no longer drill it anymore, it has to smash and pulverize it. Using construction tools for destruction is a beautiful thing.

Leaked Windows Phone Screenshots Finally Show a Notification Center

Windows Phone 8 is pretty, and there's a lot of things to like about it. But for every one of those there's also a glaring absence. Hopefully one of those is soon to disappear, leaked screenshots of an internal build of the OS shows that there's finally a notification center, presumably coming soon.

The screenshots were shared by a Redditor who bought a 920 off Ebay and found that it was running a peculiar OS: an internal beta. In addition to the notification center, there seem to be some improvements to multitasking as well, including the ability to close applications in that view.

As with any leak, there's always the possibility it's just a big fake, but there's nothing about this set of screenshots to make it wildly suspicious. On top of that, we know Microsoft's pushing out a Windows 8.1 update soon, and when an update comes to Windows Phone 8, you'd hope it would include something so basic as a notification center. Here's to hoping. More here.

Amazon Has a 3D Printer Section Now

3D printers just got a little more mainstream. Amazon has now opened its own 3D Printer page for the sale of printers and filaments so you can get all that jazz shipped right to your door with the greatest of ease.

Amazon is peddling the MakerBot Replicator 2, Afinia 3D Printer H-Series, 3D Systems' Cubify (not available), fabbster 3D Printer, Airwolf3D, and a couple of Chinese models as well as well as filament—both ABS and PLA varieties. You can also pick up books, CAD software, and other assorted parts there too.

It's just one small step to bigger 3d printer adoption; this doesn't make them any cheaper. But it's never been easier to pick one up if you're in the market. More here.