It has more or less become fact that when you pay money to travel on an airplane, you're subscribing yourself to probable gropage, uncomfortable seats, shoddy service, a few degrees of recline comfort and nuked sludge as food (if there is food). It's not pleasant. It's not futuristic. It's not fun. What if airplanes were a little bit more adaptable? Starting with the seats.


This concept design for airplane seats, designed by Seymourpowell, show an economy seat that can be re-arranged, flexed, fit and morphed to your liking. The idea is to provide something more customizable than your usual stodgy seats. Seymourpowell writes:

It is still a standard product, but it can adapt to the changing needs of the passenger. Morph uses smart architecture to adjust both the width of the seat, and individually control seat pan height and seat pan depth to suit varying sizes of passenger.

It might work. But judging from the incompetence of most airlines, it probably never will. More here.

How Teeth Whitening Strips Attack Stains Like Tiny Spaceships

You pop on a goopy strip, and a short while later you've got teeth as white and gleaming as polished tile. But how do those strips work? Wired explains, and when you zoom in to the individual ions flying around, it looks a lot like a sci-fi space attack.

Turns out, there's a lot of powerful chemistry inside each one of those whitening strips. From floor cleaner to diaper absorbent, it's stuff you wouldn't generally think to put in your mouth. But mixed properly, and applied in the privacy of your own bathroom, the stuff works its magic, without having to sit through your dentist's annoying metal-on-tooth scraping. 

Google's Getting Serious About Prescription Glass

Google really knocked everybody's socks off when it revealed Glass last year—everybody except glasses-wearers, that is. As the company prepares to bring the device to market, though, Google doesn't want to leave anybody out, and that means creating Google Glass with prescription lenses.

A new Wall Street Journal report says that process is well underway and that Google is actually in talks with VSP Global, a vision benefits company—to get Glass in optometrists' offices pronto. That would include making a prescription version, one that could be ready as early as next year. The paper says it's part of a broader effort to keep Glass "from becoming just a niche product for nerds."

Well, I've got news for you, Google. Glass is a computer that you put on your face. It's going to be a niche product for nerds for quite a while. More here.

Scientists Discover Three Galaxies Merging in the Dawn of the Universe

NASA has published an incredible photo that shows a "far-flung trio of primitive galaxies nestled inside an enormous blob of primordial gas nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth." What's amazing about this is that you are looking at something being created in the Cosmic Dawn, the period "when the universe was first bathed in starlight."

Those are the words of Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena:

This exceedingly rare triple system, seen when the universe was only 800 million years old [which is cosmic terms is the equivalent to the first 3.8 years of our lives], provides important insights into the earliest stages of galaxy formation during a period known as 'cosmic dawn,' when the universe was first bathed in starlight.

Back in 2009, astronomers only could see one ball of hot gas. But now, combining images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope in Chile and NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, they have been able to see its true form.

NASA says that Himiko—a legendary queen of ancient Japan that gives name to this space object—"it's possible the trio will eventually merge into a single galaxy similar to our own Milky Way." More here.

A Little Vitamin B Is All That Makes This Worm Glow Bright Green

This might look like the result of some wild nuclear accident, but in fact this worm is perfectly healthy. It just happens to glow bright green when exposed to certain wavelengths of light.

A team of researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Californiahas discovered that it's a humble splash of vitamin B—riboflavin to be precise—which causes the parchment tube worm to glow.

Interestingly, if you prod and poke the beast, it spits out puffs of mucus that glow bright blue light, too—but it's not clear yet what creates that particular hue. That piece of research is, apparently, next on the list. More here.

After Two Years of Nuclear Crises, Japan Opens Its Biggest Solar Park

This month, Japanese electronics company Kyocera launched the country's largest solar plant. The facility can power 22,000 homes—and, maybe more importantly, it poses no risk of melting down, injuring workers, or spewing radioactive water into the Pacific ocean.

Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar Power Plant—the facility's proper name—is located in an inlet at the very southern tip of Japan, which means it's fairly safe from threatening storms or tsunamis—although it does sit in the shadow of Sakurajima, an active volcano. But no matter what crises may come over the next few decades, Nanatsujima poses almost no threat to the surrounding community. More here.

Mount Etna Just had its first Spectacular Eruption in 20 years

Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, erupted into life this past weekend, sending lava bombs about one-meter-wide soaring into the sky for the first time in over 20 years.At 11,000-feet-high, Etna is also Europe's tallest active volcano, whose history of eruptions has been traced all the way back to the days of ancient Greece. Etna has been particularly active recently after about a half-month of no activity, so there will likely be several more shows to come—hopefully all without any damage.

Someday, Doctors May Test Circulation With Blood-Boiling Sonic Blasts

Currently, doctors use ultrasound to measure blood flow in the body. Doppler effect, just like bats! But it can't detect flow in the small, slow-moving vessels where diseases often start. The solution? Sonic blasts that heat up a tiny drop of blood, then watch where it goes. Science!

While this might sound like a comic book villain's torture device, according to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, you'd only feel a slight warming sensation from the focused ultrasonic blasts heating up your vessels. Meanwhile, infrared laser pulses bounced off the warmed blood would be picked up by the ultrasound, delivering real-time flow data.New Scientist likens it to dribbling a drop of ink in a stream of water to determine the speed and direction of flow. Except, y'know, with hot blood instead of ink.

In experiments, the technique accurately measured blood flow as slow as a quarter-millimeter per second. By comparison, current ultrasound technique can't accurately detect anything under 10 millimeters per second. Next up: human testing. And apparently it won't hurt a bit. More here.

Laser Holograms as Thin as a Hair Could Be the Future of High-Res

Holograms are cool enough on their own, but amazing things happen when you make them incredibly small. A team of Army-funded scientists from Purdue did just that with the development of tiny holograms—smaller than the width of a human hair!—made by shining lasers through a metasurface. This could change display technology forever.

The new hologram set-up uses a metasurface made from thousands of V-shaped nanoantennas hammered into a gold foil. When a laser light shines through the bottom, it projects a hologram just 10 microns above the metasurface. Incredibly, the researchers who built the technology were able to display "PURDUE" in a space narrower than a human hair. The ability to make shapes as intricate as letters means that this technology could also be used to form pixels for future displays, even 3D ones. Changing shapes is as easy as rearranging the nanoantennas on the metasurface.

So if you think Apple's Retina display is impressive, well, you ain't seen nothing 'til you've seen nano-sized holograms. More here.

London Will Start Testing Fifth Element Style Multipass Next Year

All of a sudden, it's the 23rd Century. The UK's government innovation board has just approved funding to begin implementing an all-in-one train/bus/subway/airline pass in 2014. And yes, the actually named it MultiPass after the thing from the Bruce Willis movie.

The plan revolves around a passcard with an e-ink barcode display that would replace a plethora of current travel fare cards. Supporters envision it being used to pay for every aspect of travel, including parking and snacks along the way. The MultiPass company even says the cloud-based system will always give users the lowest fare, no matter where or how they're traveling — which is apparently rather challenging in the UK's current system.

Two pilot tests will begin in 2014, in London and Glasgow, with the full rollout anticipated in the following year. Plenty of time to practice your pronunciation. More here.

This Double Decker Glass Table Moves Desktop Clutter One Level Down

There are those of us who prefer working at a desk that's clean, free of clutter, and devoid of anything but the work we're focusing on. But that doesn't necessarily mean we're ready for a monastic lifestyle where we have to give up all of our wordly possessions. Instead, this double decker Pili Table designed by Ricard Mollon is a fair compromise, keeping all our unneccessary crap a few inches below the desktop.

At over $3,500 it's admittedly an expensive alternative to simply cleaning your desk and stashing unneeded paperwork in a filing cabinet. But it's one of those rare times when form and function seem perfectly balanced. And it seems like a great way to keep crumbs and food off a keyboard by moving and using it on that lower level. More here.

These Pencils Eventually Sharpen Into Spinning Tops

What do you normally do when you've sharpened a pencil down to a nub—just throw it away? That's the most likely outcome, but if you opt for these wonderful Spincils, you're instead left with a spinning top to add to your collection of desktop distractions.

But the Spincils are beyond just recycled toys; they're individual works of art. Each one is actually a solid piece of wood that's been hand turned in a lathe to get that large bump on the end—there's no mass production done here. So don't expect them to come cheap. But on the plus side, the Spincils work like a top after just the first sharpen (albeit a little on the tipsy side) so you don't have to grind them down to a nub to play with them right away. More here.

A Travel Bag That Keeps Your Clean and Dirty Clothes Separate

Cramming as much clothing as you can into as small a suitcase as possible is a fine art. And with Outlier's new Doublebag, now any traveler can be a Michelangelo of packing. It not only lets you compress your clothing for maximum capacity, it also doubles as a laundry bag that keeps your smelly worn garments quarantined from the clean.

Using a clever double-walled design, both the clean and dirty sides of the $48 bag can expand or shrink as needed. So at the start of a trip the entire bag can be used to stash your clean clothes, but as the days drag on, the capacity of the dirty side can be expanded to accommodate your ever growing pile of laundry. And while the Doublebag is sealed shut, you've got yourself a comfy travel pillow that still probably smells better than your hotel's offering. More here.

These New Graphene Supercapacitors Could Finally Power An Electric Car

A team of South Korean scientists has developed a new graphene supercapacitor that can store almost as much energy as a lithium-ion battery, but charge in only 16 seconds. This makes it an ideal material to store braking energy and could be exactly what the electric car industry needs.

Scientists from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea made the breakthrough by creating an especially porous form of graphene. (See below.) Incredibly, a single gram of this specialized graphene has the same amount of surface area as a basketball. This greatly increased surface area enables the supercapacitor to store far more energy than previous versions of the material, which had been keeping graphene supercapacitors out of the running as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries for electric cars. Because they don't use chemicals, graphene supercapacitors also have a much longer life than lithium ion batteries.

Finding success in the lab and bringing a product to market are two very different things, so it's unclear how quickly we might see this impressive technology at work in electric cars. The South Koreans say that these "supercapacitor energy storage devices… can be scaled up for manufacturing in the near future for electric vehicle applications."

So that's something. But only time will tell whether these supercapacitors take over before Tesla manages to build its famously ambitious lithium-ion factory. More here.

How the GoPro Became the Best Selling Camera In the World

The GoPro is an amazing action camera that lets people record extreme sports, daredevil feats, and other spectacles. Just a few years ago, it would have been impossible. But, today, it is the best-selling camera in the world.

In a short 60 Minutes profile, Anderson Cooper runs through the story of the rugged camera from the beginning, when the company was founded by a young surfer and failed entrepreneur named Nick Woodman 12 years ago. The first GoPro product? A simple waterproof film camera. 

Since then, the company has doubled its sales yearly, to revenues of more than $500 million per year. Never underestimate the potential of a simple, effective, inexpensive tool. More here.

Your Face and Name Will Appear in Google Ads Starting Today

It's party time, ladies and gentlemen. Exactly one month after announcing the move, Google has updated its terms of service, allowing the company to use your profile information in ads. That means your face, name and personal details will start popping up all over your network. Yay!

Well, that might not be a reaction you share. As we learned from Facebook's foray into social ads, plenty of people don't like their face and name to show up in ads, so much so that they sued the company (and won). But fear not! You can opt out by unchecking the box on the bottom of this page. You can also read more about the new Terms of Service here. But seriously: opt out here.

Bill Gates Unveiled Windows 30 Years Ago Today

This aAmazing Fruit fly Evolved to Have Pictures of Aants on its Wings

This is unbelievable, but the fruit fly G tridens has somehow evolved to have what looks like pictures of ants on its wings. Seriously, its transparent wings have an ant design on them complete with "six legs, two antennae, a head, thorax and tapered abdomen." It's nature's evolutionary art painted on a fly's wings.

Recently spotted by the New York Times, the fruit fly is just incredible. Other flies in its family of 5,000 species have other type of markings on its wings but it's the G tridens that has something so intricate and so specific.

The idea of the ant design, as explained to The National by Dr Brigitte Howarth of Zayed University who first discovered G tridens in the UAE, is that these flies use their wings to ward off predators. The fly flashes it wings back and forth to make it seem as if the ants are moving around and that movement would confuse the predator. More here.

This Chair Can Be Worn Like a Backpack

If you demand that your furniture is both reassuringly substantial and also portable, then you probably have a tough time navigating life. But here's something to help: a real chair that can be worn as a backpack.

The Nomadic Chair by Jorge Penades is constructed from wood, but doesn't require anyscrews, nails or glue—it simply uses some smart plastic connectors to fit together. Penades explains the design:

‘Luxury is not anymore a matter of comfort. nowadays, luxury is to be able to decide where you want to have a moment of peace, a chance to escape from hectic activity of contemporary lifestyles.’

Nice. So, when you've finished sitting, dismantle, pack and sling it on your back—ready to find the next spot to take a break. More here.

The World's Thinnest 2TB Hard Drive Is a Mere 9.5mm Thick

Seagate's come along to steal WD's thunder with the ultra-slim 2.5-inch Spinpoint M9T that manages to double that capacity to two-terabytes inside a drive that's just 9.5 millimeters thick.

So you're getting twice the capacity at the cost of just 2.5 millimeters in added thickness—that sounds pretty reasonable. After all, at 9.5 millimeters thick the M9T is still the thinnest two-terabyte hard drive you can currently buy. The drive will also be available in a 1.5 terabyte model as well, which will presumably cost slightly less than the two terabyte model's $129 price tag. More here.

An Awesome guy Made an Insane Thor Hammer that Smashes Everything

This version of Thor's hammer was made by master swordsmith Tony Swatton. He's a Picasso when it comes to recreating movie props like Wolverine's claws, swords from Game of Thrones and weapons of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.


The 11-inch long, 5-inch high and 4-inch wide hammer is beautifully detailed (stick around to watch them etch the hammer) and weighs 20 pounds when hollow. When they fill it up to make it solid, it'd be a 200 pound beast.

Philips Adds a New Bulb To The Hue Lineup

The first bulbs in Philips' color-changing, app-controlled Hue line were designed to mimic the unidirectional shine of standard A19 light bulbs. This made them ideal for conventional lamps, but wasted a large portion of their light when installed in recessed ceiling fixtures. But today, Philips has announced the new Hue BR30 downlight bulb.

The BR30 delivers the same 630 lumen and 2000-6500k temperature range as the standard LED Hues, while drawing just 8W of power. And as with the older bulb model, the new BR30s can be controlled via the associated iOS app (or a meagre Android version). The BR30 starter set (which includes the Hue network bridge) retails for $200 from the Apple Store, while individual bulbs will set you back $60 a pop if you just want to add them on to your existing Hue system. More here.

There Was an Incredible Hybrid Solar Eclipse this Morning

This morning's hybrid solar eclipse was stunning. But depending on where you are in the world you may not have been able to see it at all, cloud cover may have messed with visibility, or you may have had a partial view. So for anyone who missed it, this is what the eclipse looked like from Kenya. Pretty snazzy, huh?

The top image is made of three exposures, all taken by Ben Curtis at Lake Oloidien near Naivasha in Kenya. The image shows the movement of the solar eclipse from right to left. A near total blackout was visible from Kenya, though there was still a small sliver of the sun showing. The photo below was taken in Nairobi by Sayyid Azim. The eclipse was only visible in Kenya for about 15 seconds. More here.

Cell Phones and Brains

Jaw-Dropping Proof That NASA Rocket Scientists Carve the Best Pumpkins

The internet's chock full of wonderful ways to carve a Halloween pumpkin every year, but few can hold a glowing candle to what the scientists, engineers, and researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab come up with. Every year the lab holds a pumpkin carving competitionand the results, and the carving techniques, are exactly what you'd expect from the geniuses who landed the rovers on Mars.

Entries included everything from complete solar systems, to space battles, to aquariums filled with living fish. And the real winners were the geniuses who found a way to get out of an afternoon of work.

Possibly the Comfiest Nutcracker You'll Ever Use

Halloween's come and gone, and as we move towards the holidays, those dwindling bowls of candy will soon be replaced with overflowing mountains of nuts—necessitating some way to bust open those hard shells. A hammer's a little brutish, and using your teeth is just a terrible idea. What you need is this lovely purpose-built nutcracker from Normann Copenhagen, featuring a thick silicone handle so you don't destroy your hands in the process.

The flexible silicone also forces the nutcracker's jaws open after each use, so it's always at the ready for the next nut. At $53 it isn't cheap, but with seasonally-neutral red or black color options, you'll be able to use it all year round. More here.

A Single Cup To Handle All Your Kitchen Measurements

You can finally replace that stack of incremental measuring spoons that never actually seem to to stay stacked with Joseph Joseph's new 2-in-1 measuring cup, which handles both large and small measurements—even at the same time. The cup's larger chamber can hold up to four cups of dry or liquid ingredients, while the smaller chamber in the corner lets you measure out as little as five milliliters.

You'll also notice the $20 measuring cup's unique square corners, which makes it easier to pour out ingredients exactly where you want them. There's also a soft silicone handle that's extra grippy, so four cups of flour don't accidentally end up on the floor. More here.

You Could Get a Ticket For Wearing Google Glass While Driving

Because, as Cecilia Abadie recently found out, you might end up getting a ticket. Pulled over by San Diego police, she got a ticket for wearing the smart glasses while at the wheel just days ago. She explains:

A cop just stopped me and gave me a ticket for wearing Google Glass while driving! The exact line says: Driving with Monitor visible to Driver (Google Glass).

Clearly, Californian police feel that the display on Glass is as distracting as looking at a phone. It's not obvious if that's really the case or not—but it'll be interesting to see what lawyers and judges make of it. What do you think? More here.

The Internet Archive Opens Its Historical Software Collection To All

Gamers of a certain age will no doubt scream Oh wow, I remember that! as they click through the Internet Archive's latest project.

The non-profit organization recently launched the Historical Software Collection, with the mission of making old programs accessible (including plenty of games!) that were originally released for platforms like Atari 2600, Apple II, and Commodore 64.

Software itself isn't new to the Archive, but it's spent the past couple of years making these programs playable in-browser. So whether it's E.T. on Atari 2600 from 1982 or VisiCalc on the Apple II from 1979, there's no need to download a heap of emulators to try them out.

Archiving video games can present special challenges, as David Gibson at the Library of Congress has explained so well. But the independent Internet Archive claims to have thelargest software archive in the world, and it should be interesting to see how the next few years work out for them.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges they'll face is copyright. Technically, all of these programs are still covered under copyright law. And I have no doubt that the myriad companies responsible for managing the rights to something like E.T. are figuring out if they should intervene. Hopefully, no one will try to pull these programs. More here.

A Detailed Description of Why Human Skin Is Amazing

As Minute Earth rightly points out, we could avoid a lot of flesh wounds by having thicker armored skin like a pangolin. But the energy needed to generate and maintain that armor wasn't evolutionarily worth it for us to expend because we put so much fuel into our enormous brains. We can think of ways to escape danger or make intelligent plans to avoid dangerous situations in the first place. And we do have scales, they're just not visible to the naked eye, but they protect us from tons of microbes. A lot is going on with our skin as the layers form, live out their life rising to the surface and then die. Watch this video and then go exfoliate.

7 Things You Do On the Internet That'd Be Creepy to Do in Real Life

You're a different person online compared to your real life. It's okay. You don't have to irrationally like cats just because you're obsessed with cat videos. You don't have to literally poke the people you poked on Facebook. You don't have to like or follow or tag or comment or stalk celebrities like you do on the Internet. Because if you did that in real life, you'd be a total creep. BuzzFeed Video imagined 7 things that'd be super creepy to do in real life, even though you do them on the Internet.

Dinosaurs Were Able to Grow So Huge Because of Their Squishy Joints

There's a reason that towering mammals the likes of King Kong are resigned to fiction. Our aching bones can only take so much weight before they start crumbling under the pressure. But if that's the case, then why were dinosaurs able to reach such phenomenal heights? According to a new study, the answer isn't so much about the bones themselves as it is the soft, squishy joints they lay between.

The scientists leading the new study published in PLOS ONE measured the ends of bones in both mammals and dinosaurs as well as their descendants to see how joint and bone shape changes as size increases.

As mammals grow, our bones become progressively rounder at the ends to be able to support the increase in weight while minimizing pressure as much as possible. Reptiles and birds, however, (as well as the dinosaurs that came before them) have bones that grow wider and flatter as more weight is added to the frame. So considering that these two very different shapes are both meant to sustain more weight, the joints and cartilage that connect them must also work differently.

For humans and other mammals, as the bones become rounder the connecting cartilage continues to stretch thin and tight across the bones surface. Because the soft, connective cartilage is close-fitting and maleable, our weight is able to distribute more evenly. The wider, flatter bones of reptiles, however, solve the problem by packing as many layers of the stuff as they can—which as it turns out, is a much more efficient method. According to Matthew Bonnan from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and one of the lead authors on the study:

More than just evenly distributing the pressure, the joint itself may be deforming a little — it’s actually squishier, increasing the force it can sustain.

Of course, these gelatinous joint fillings weren't the only thing letting dinos tower over the rest of the prehistoric world. The lighter, hollow bones favored by reptiles also meant that larger frames didn't require as much support as our own solid bricks for bones. This does, however, at least begin to explain why dinosaurs were able to reach such larger than (modern) life proportions.

Still, as pillowy and bouncy as their joints may be, everything has its limits. You know, like extinction-event comets. More here.

Can a Sponge Absorb Mercury?

A sponge is a sponge because its porous material is able to absorb liquid of any kind. But what about liquid metal? Can a sponge actually absorb the heavy quicksilver material known as mercury? Not at all. At best, a little bit of mercury goop gets caught on top of the sponge and slides away like its T-1000 shaping itself back together.

We've Finally Figured Out Why Kettles Whistle

This might shock you, but for over a century scientists have been pondering why kettles whistle—and completely failed to find an answer. That's all changed now, though, thanks totwo scientists from the University of Cambridge who have worked out how it happens.

The whistle in a kettle is created when steam passes through two plates, positioned close together, each with a hole in them. But scientists have been trying, and failing, for decades to understand exactly what it is about this process that makes the high-pitched sound.

Ross Henrywood and Anurag Agarwal used insights gained from analyzing noise creation in jet engines to try and answer the question. By analyzing the flow of steam which travels up the spout of the kettle, they were able to pinpoint what creates the whistle.

Their results, which are published in the academic journal The Physics Of Fluids, show that the sound is produced by small vortices—regions where the steam swirls—which at certain frequencies can produce noise. They explain:

As steam comes up the kettle’s spout, it meets a hole at the start of the whistle, which is much narrower than the spout itself. This contracts the flow of steam as it enters the whistle and creates a jet of steam passing through it. The steam jet is naturally unstable, like the jet of water from a garden hose that starts to break into droplets after it has travelled a certain distance. As a result, by the time it reaches the end of the whistle, the jet of steam is no longer a pure column, but slightly disturbed. These instabilities cannot escape perfectly from the whistle and as they hit the second whistle wall, they form a small pressure pulse. This pulse causes the steam to form vortices as it exits the whistle. These vortices produce sound waves, creating the comforting noise that heralds a forthcoming cup of tea.

Which is fascinating. But it could also prove useful, because the knowledge gained from the study could help other scientists and engineers find and stop other similar—but more annoying—noises. Henrywood explains:

The effect we have identified can actually happen in all sorts of situations - anything where the structure containing a flow of air is similar to that of a kettle whistle. Pipes inside a building are one classic example and similar effects are seen inside damaged vehicle exhaust systems. Once we know where the whistle is coming from, and what’s making it happen, we can potentially get rid of it.

Next one the list? High-speed hand-dryers. Look out, Dyson, the University of Cambridge is hot on your heels. More here.

This Runner's Jacket Inflates To Cool You Down

The folks over at Gear Junkie got a chance to visit the product development lab at North Face's new headquarters in Alameda, California, and one of the many new innovations they were shown was this wonderful runner's jacket that uses a clever ventilation system to cool you down.

Tugging on a pair of elastics on the updated Stormy Trail runner's jacket seals off the coat at the waist. So as the wearer runs, air entering the jacket through a series of vents can't escape out the bottom. Instead, it flows up the runner's back and escapes out another vent closer to the top of the jacket, taking heat with it and cooling the wearer in the process. It's as close as a jacket can get to air conditioning, and will be available next July for about $165. More here.

Dolphins Inspire a New Kind of Radar That Detects Hidden Electronics

Not only are they out there keeping fish populations under control and occasionally leading lost boaters to land, dolphins' unique hunting techniques have also recently inspired a new kind of radar that's able to pinpoint hidden electronics like bomb triggers and surveillance devices. Move over dogs, man's officially found its new best friend.

Developed by researchers at the University of Southampton in England who were intrigued at how dolphins were still able to pinpoint fish they were hunting even in the middle of distracting clouds of underwater bubbles, the TWIPR—or twin inverted pulse radar—borrows techniques from the ocean's smartest inhabitants.

Namely, a technique where two signal pulses are sent out instead of one. This approach allows dolphins to distinguish between fish and bubbles, but with the TWIPR technology it can be used to detect electronics. When the pair of positive and negative pulses hit something like a tree, a rock, or even metal, they cancel each other out and disappear. But when the pulses hit a device made with semiconductors, the negative pulse becomes positive, doubling the signal and making the electronics very easy to spot.

What's particularly awesome is that the new technology—which could easily find a bomb hidden in a dumpster full of trash—measures just two inches in size and can be built from electronics costing less than a dollar. So putting it into production and into the hands of those in danger shouldn't require much further development. More here.

Scientists Discover Gold Literally Growing on Trees in the Outback

Every parent's favorite line about how money doesn't grow on trees just became a little more irrelevant, thanks to a fascinating find down under. Researchers in Australia recently found gold—yes,real gold—in eucalyptus trees growing in the outback.

A team of unlikely prospectors recently ventured into the arid land of the Goldfields-Esperance region in Western Australia, hoping to learn more about what was underneath its soil. The area earned its name for being rich in gold deposits—that were, however, notoriously difficult to find. So the researchers looked in an unlikely place: The trees.

Eucalyptus trees in this region are known for their resiliency, and for roots that reach impossibly deep to find the groundwater needed to keep themselves alive. It just so turns out that the elusive gold deposits are down there, too.

Chasing a longstanding rumor that the trees' leaves get their gold luster from the deposits, the scientists analyzed the leaves of eucalyptus trees in the area—and sure enough, they found traces of gold. Apparently, the trees' roots grew ten stories deep into the soil and absorbed gold particles from nearby deposits. To confirm that these particles came from the soil under the roots, they grew eucalyptus trees in gold-laced potting soil in a greenhouse. And sure enough—they found gold in those leaves, too.

The idea that plants absorb minerals from the soil around them is hardly new, but this is an extraordinary case. "Gold is probably toxic to plants and is moved to its extremities (such as leaves) or in preferential zones within cells in order to reduce deleterious biochemical reaction," reads a study about the research published today in Nature Communications. The authors also point out that this is "the first evidence of particulate gold within natural specimens of living biological tissue." That's a hell of a first, even for you alchemy nerds out there.

Don't go thinking you can get rich by cutting down eucalyptus trees, though. Each tree contains such a small amount of gold—46 parts per billion, to be exact—that it would take hundreds to compile enough for a wedding ring. But the trees could be used to scout the location of underground gold deposits. And since approximately 30 percent of the world's gold reserves are thought to lie underground in the Goldfields-Esperance region, the search may be well worth the trouble. More here.

A Headphone Jack Laser Pointer That No One Will Be Able To Spot

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise; highlighting a character's crotch on-screen at the movies is hi-larious, and always will be. But getting caught with a laser pointer in your hand and tossed out of the theater isn't. So thankfully red lasers have been around for decades, and have been miniaturized to the point where they can hide inside your smartphone's headphone jack.

Designed strictly for safe work purposes like highlighting information during a presentation, the iPinsips power from your iPhone but shouldn't drain its battery unless left on for endless hours. Speaking of which, the laser is activated using a free accompanying app, and it even has a safety to ensure it can't be accidentally turned on when you don't need it. You just turn the laser 90 degrees when it's inserted in the headphone jack and it will remain inert until you turn it back.

At just over $40 it is considerably expensive given red laser pointers are almost as cheap as penny candy these days. But what you're mostly paying for here is a covert way to harass and annoy people. Note: please don't harass and annoy people with this. More here.

Scientists Just Took a Huge Step Towards Curing Baldness

Hair plugs, comb overs and toupées beware; a team of researchers from Columbia has developed a way to induce new human hair growth for the first time ever. It’s not just the fact that they can just grow hair that’s so exciting, though. It’s that they can grow yourhair.

The technique centers on the behavior of human dermal papilla cells, the ones that make up the base of hair follicles. While the idea of using dermal papilla cells to generate new hair growth has been around for about 40 years, scientists have had a hard time doing it since the cells simply revert back to basic skin cells when they’re put into a culture. Rodent papillae, however, don’t have that problem, because they clump together and make it easier for the cells to communicate with each other.

Taking a cue from the rodent example, the Columbia researchers figured out how to encourage the human papillae to aggregate in a culture. After harvesting samples from human donors, the researchers transplanted the cells between the dermis and epidermis of human skin and grafted them onto the backs of mice. After a few days, scientists found that the hair was growing like normal. Sure, the human hair was growing on the backs of mice, but they matched up with the donors perfectly.

A magical hair growth tonic is probably still at least a few years away, if it's coming at all. But at least we’re headed in the right direction. More here.

Use a Laser Pointer to Turn Your iPhone Into a Microscope

Would This Bike With Storage Inside the Front Wheel Even Be Rideable?

Weighing in at around 25 pounds, you're not going to find many cyclists adopting the Transport, but its creators claim that's about as heavy as your average road bike, so it's perfect for commuters.

They also point out that since the modified front tire is made from lightweight plastic, it weighs the same as a standard road bike tire too—except that doesn't take into account the weight of the extra crap you toss in there. Once a backpack filled with a laptop, clothing, and other daily accessories is stuffed inside, that front wheel is bound to feel quite a bit different, particularly when cornering. What do you think? More here.

This Thermal Wristband Tricks You Into Never Being Too Warm or Cold

We all know someone who can never seem to get comfy, no matter the temperature. They're always pulling off sweaters because they're too hot, or cranking up the heat because they're too cold. But soon, salvation for these folks could come in the form of a special wristband that uses a copper heatsink to fool your body into thinking it's just been warmed or cooled—when in reality, the ambient temperature hasn't changed.

The technology—developed by researchers at MIT and dubbed Wristify—relies on a phenomenon where rapid external temperature changes on a person's skin can actually affect how their whole body feels. So the wristband—powered by a lithium polymer battery for up to eight hours—delivers rapid but subtle thermal pulses that change at a rate of 0.4 degrees celsius every second.

Raising or lowering the temperature of those thermal pulses will actually make the wearer's entire body feel as if it's getting warmer or cooler, allowing them to get comfy without having to touch a thermostat or change their wardrobe. It would also allow a building to reduce its heating or cooling needs if everyone inside had a Wristify strapped to their arm, which might not seem so implausible if the technology was built into the many smartwatches on the horizon. More here.

You'll Barely Notice the World's Smallest USB 3.0 Flash Drive

When it comes to prolonging the life of your laptop, there's no easier upgrade than adding an ultra-compact USB flash drive to expand its storage capacity—particularly if it's got a small SSD on board. And a company called PKparis is now laying claim to the title of 'world's smallest USB 3.0 flash drive' with its new K’1 that more than looks the part.

Available in 32GB and 64GB capacities for $48 and $89 respectively, the aluminum drives offer read and write speeds up to 140 MB/s, and they even include a tiny LED activity light. You'll of course want to make sure your laptop is already equipped with USB 3.0 to take full advantage of the K'1's capabilities, and once it's plugged in you'll never have to worry about losing it—or even noticing it for that matter. More here.

Why Exercise When You Can Buy a $50 Fake-Muscle T-Shirt?

Fifty bucks might sound expensive for an undershirt, but not when it means you can cancel your gym membership, stop buying gallons of protein powder, and sell all of your home gym equipment. Because not only does the Funkybod t-shirt promise to camouflage manboobs, it also creates the illusion you've got a muscular toned physique, no matter how frail you might be in real life.

It's all thanks to a set of subtle plates—presumably made of a comfortable foam—that accentuate your shoulder, bicep, lat, pectoral, and shoulder muscles. Worn by itself the fake muscles are easy to spot, but when worn under another shirt no one will be able to tell you don't spend every morning at the gym. And the plates supposedly even feel like real muscle, so no one will be the wiser until you're forced to take your shirt off. Which means that if you spill on yourself, you'll be wearing that stained shirt all day until you get home. More here.

How a Lost Boy Used Google Earth to Find His Way Home After 25 Years

In the video, Brierly recounts how 1987, after a day of begging for money on the street, he boarded a train for home, but he never got there because he fell asleep and missed his stop. Instead, he ended up on the other end of the country. He was labeled lost, adopted and shipped off to Australia. But thanks to the Google, he found his way home—as if you needed another reason to love Google Maps.

I Have Seen the Future and It's a One-Handed Magnetic Zipper

Under Armour is making the bold claim that it's finally "fixed zippers." And while its innovative new Magzip feature probably isn't going to change the entire world, it's still a vast improvement to clothing technology that hasn't evolved in in almost 100 years. It's also voodoo magic.

If you've ever fumbled trying to connect the two loose ends of a zipper—and really, who hasn't?—you'll immediately see the value in Under Armour's new approach that uses a strong magnet and a re-engineered clasp to automatically guide the two ends of a zipper together, allowing you to do up a coat with just one hand.

The idea for the Magzip actually came from an engineer named Scott Peters, who originally designed it to allow those dealing with conditions that inhibit their fine motor control and coordination to more easily dress themselves. Perfecting the mechanism required about 25 different prototypes, but the final version was patented and eventually licensed by Under Armour for a new line of clothing and jackets destined for a fall 2014 release. More here.

These Rorschach Ink Tests Could Replace the Good Old CAPTCHA

The CAPTCHA is a wonderful thing, but it's not without its failings. And as hackers get better and better at cracking them, a team of CMU engineers are proposing an alternative: Inkblot tests.

It's called a GOTCHA (of course), and it stands for Generating panOptic Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. The test was developed by three CMU researchers named Jeremiah Blocki, Manuel Blum, and Anupam Datta, who wanted to capitalize on our natural predilection to visual pattern recognition. Their test is a variant of a HOSP, or a Human-Only Solvable Puzzle, which defend against offline dictionary attacks by requiring human interaction with each password. In other words, these puzzles defend against attacks where hackers will try millions of different passwords in an attempt to access your account.

Here's how GOTCHA would work: When a user signs up for a service—a new email account, let's say—they'll be shown a series if inkblot tests and asked to describe them in a few words. Then, when they come back a few days later to sign in, they're presented with the same inkblot tests plus their original answers. They simply have to match up the answers with the correct images. That way, it's tougher for a computer to replicate not only the uniquely human ability to see visual patterns, but also to replicate that ability in the same way twice.

According to the team's October 7 paper—creatively titled GOTCHA Password Hackers!—the CMU team tested their design using a small sample of 70 through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. And while some participants didn't match their answers up correctly, there was good evidence that most users could trust their memories, and it's likely that the test could be tailored to be more consistent. More here.

It's Raining Diamonds on Saturn and Jupiter

We're a little late to the party on this one, but it's just too fascinating to pass up. A team of planetary scientists recently claimed that the mix of methane, carbon and lightning in Saturn's atmosphere is causing diamonds to be forged in the planet's atmosphere. Like, a lot of diamonds.

"The bottom line is that 1,000 tons of diamonds a year are being created on Saturn," Dr. Kevin Baines of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently told the BBC. "People ask me, 'How can you really tell? Because there's no way you can go and observe it.' " Baines explained, "It all boils down to the chemistry. And we think we're pretty certain."

The chemistry is actually pretty simple. Saturn's atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen and methane, but when storms crop up, the lightning fries the methane, producing pure hydrogen and burnt carbon, a.k.a. soot. As the clouds of soot fall towards the planet, they clump together forming graphite, and as the pressure builds up closer to the planet's core, that graphite is compressed into pure diamond. So it's literally raining diamonds on Saturn. The scientists think the same thing might be happening on Jupiter.

Does this do us any good? Not right now. It's pretty hard to get to Saturn and Jupiter and to get down to where the diamonds are would be pretty tough since the pressure there is about 100,000 times what it is at sea level on Earth. And if we don't catch them fast enough, the diamonds eventually fall into the core and melt. Nobody wants a melted diamond necklace. More here.

Sleeping In Public Just Keeps Getting Easier

Like ostriches themselves, the Ostrich Pillow is enigmatic and generally fascinating. Who would use it? Is it appropriate for children? Is it a sex toy? Hard to say! But it looks downright comfortable for napping. The only issue is carrying it.

With that thing hanging out of your bag it's pretty obvious that you're getting read to rob a bank and then sleep it off. That's why Ostrich Light is lifting its head out of the sand.

Ostrich Light is a sort of fleece earband/VISOR combo by Studio Banana Things that you can wear around your neck and then move onto your face when it's time to pass out. Or you can keep it in a bag until you're ready to use it like a reasonable person. It looks soft and cushy, but also packable which is the whole point of this redesign. Ostrich Light raised more than $6,000 in its first day on Kickstarter and its goal is $40,000 (£25,000).More here.

This Bronze Candle Will Burn Forever and Never Melt Away

Given how important it's been to our development, mankind will always be drawn to open flames. But if you're tired of buying tea light candles in bulk for a little bit of accent lighting,Fabien Gerlier's Caviar might be better suited to adding accent lighting to your home. Made of sintered bronze, the lamp stays lit without ever burning away.

So what exactly is sintered bronze? Think of it kind of like a metallic styrofoam, but instead of being composed of thousands of tiny granules of foam, it's made of endless tiny specks of bronze. And since the material isn't solid, it allows gas from a fuel reservoir to seep through, and that's what's actually seen burning, not the lamp itself.

Want to buy one? That's unfortunate, because the Caviar lamp is sadly just a thesis project by Gerlier who's working towards getting his masters in product design. But while you can't buy one now, there's no reason to think the lamp couldn't one day go into production. More here.