You can get Legos in all the colors of the rainbow—even solid gold bricks to really flash up your creations. But wooden pieces? Unfortunately the Danish aren’t having any part of that; you’ll need to turn to the Japanese designers at Mokurokku for these beautiful knock-offs. More »
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Wooden Bricks Finally Let You Build That Authentic Lego Log Cabin
Everyone reading this has heard of herbal medicine, but this is taking things a little too literally. Coconuts have been used as IV bags to rehydrate severely ill patients in remote areas. Learn why this works, and consider what it might tell us about the universe. More »
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Coconuts are nature’s IV bags
Bloomberg is reporting that the TSA will be removing all of the remaining backscatter X-ray machines from US airports. The removal isn’t because of health concerns—instead, the machines’ manufacturer, Rapiscan Systems , failed to meet a US Congress-imposed deadline for altering the machines’ software to produce “generic passenger images,” according to the report. TSA assistant administer for acquisitions Karen Shelton Waters, speaking on behalf of the agency, noted that Rapiscan Systems would absorb the cost for the scanners’ removal, and that the removal is unrelated to Rapiscan’s alleged falsification of the machines’ abilities to protect passengers’ privacy. Nor does the removal appear to be related to ongoing questions about the safety of the backscatter X-ray technology. The CEO of OSI systems, Rapiscan’s parent company, says that rather than pitching the expensive machines into the garbage bin, the TSA will be relocating them to other government agencies. In total, there are 174 Rapiscan backscatter X-ray machines that will be pulled from airports and relocated, on top of the 76 that were removed last year. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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All backscatter “pornoscanners” to be removed from US airports
It’s generally a bad idea to base your budget on hypothetical money that may or may not end up in your pocket. It’s a much worse idea if you’re the state of California, and that money is wacky Facebook cash . More »
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Stupid California Cost Itself $600 Million Over Stupid Facebook IPO
You won’t have any trouble finding this Marco Polo in the pool—even with your eyes closed. Five Airbus a380s lined up nose-to-tail still wouldn’t match the length, much less the overwhelming mass, of the world’s largest container ship. More »
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The New Backbone of International Trade Is the Single Biggest Movable Thing We’ve Ever Built
This metamaterial is the aperture of the new microwave imaging device. John Hunt Add image compression to the list of nifty applications for metamaterials. Metamaterials guide light waves to create “ invisibility cloaks ” and bend sound waves to make theoretical noise reduction systems for urban areas. But these materials are tuned to particular wavelengths; some invisibility cloaks don’t work at all visible wavelengths because they leak those wavelengths of light. Now researchers have capitalized on that leakiness to build a new functional device: a microwave imaging system that compresses an image as it’s being collected—not afterward as our digital cameras do. Every pixel in a picture from our digital cameras corresponds to a pixel of information recorded on the detector inside the camera. Once a camera collects all the light intensity information from a scene, it promptly discards some of it and compresses the data into a JPEG file (unless you explicitly tell it to save raw data). You still end up with a decent picture, though, because most of the discarded data was redundant. Compressive sensing aims to ease this process by reducing the amount of data collected in the first place. One way to do this is with a single pixel camera , developed in 2006. These devices capture information from random patterns of pixels around the image, essentially adding the light intensity values of several pixels together. If you know something about the structure of that image—say clusters of bright stars set against a dark sky—you’ll be able to capture that image with fewer measurements than a traditional camera. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Metamaterials perform image compression before light reaches the sensor
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI seeking details of its surveillance policy — who it spies upon, and how, and under what circumstances. The FBI sent back two 50+ page memos in reply, each of them totally blacked out except for some information on the title page. In a 12-minute video posted online, Weissmann spoke about two memos: one focused on the use of GPS tracking on forms of transportation beyond cars, the other regarding how Jones applies to tracking methods outside of GPS (presumably like cellphone ping data). “Is it going to apply to boats, is it going to apply to airplanes?” Weissmann asks in the video. “Is it going to apply at the border? What’s it mean for the consent that’s given by an owner? What does it mean if consent is given by a possessor? And this is all about GPS, by the way, without getting into other types of techniques.” And those questions remain wholly unanswered. “The Justice Department’s unfortunate decision leaves Americans with no clear understanding of when we will be subjected to tracking—possibly for months at a time—or whether the government will first get a warrant,” Catherine Crump, an ACLU staff attorney, wrote on Wednesday. FBI to ACLU: Nope, we won’t tell you how, when, or why we track you [Cyrus Farivar/Ars Technica]
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FBI responds to ACLU FOIA request…with 111 blank pages
Politically speaking, the war in Afghanistan may be winding down; but technologically speaking, things are ramping up. Earlier this month a shipping container was quietly deployed to a remote outpost in Afghanistan. Kitted out by the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force, this particular shipping container is essentially a digital manufacturing lab in a box. Known as the ELM or Expeditionary Lab – Mobile, the unit contains a 3D printer and a CNC mill (as well as more conventional tools like a plasma cutter, welding gear, a circular saw, a router, a jigsaw and a reciprocating saw). Unsurprisingly, troops on the ground are not using the ELMs to print out heart-shaped gears ; rather, the point of the ELMs is to allow last-minute rapid prototyping upgrades to crucial pieces of equipment. As one example, soldiers discovered that the on-button for one standard-issue tactical flashlight had a raised button that could accidentally be pressed, unintentionally turning the flashlight on while the soldier was moving around. Best case scenario, the thing’s in a pocket, you don’t realize it’s on and the batteries drain down. Worst case scenario, the sudden illumination advertises your position to the enemy while you’re sneaking around in the dark. Under normal Army procurement procedures, designing, commissioning, manufacturing and distributing an updated design would take months or years. But with the ELMs, which come with two digital manufacturing technicians, a solution like this clip-on guard to shield the button can be quickly designed and printed. The ELM shipped earlier this month was actually the second; the first was sent to Afghanistan last summer. Following the concept’s success, a third ELM is in the works and will reportedly be deployed later this year. The following video on the ELMs isn’t terribly detailed, and features CG footage that doesn’t quite track with the narrative, but it’s all we’ve got: via 3ders (more…)
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The U.S. Army’s Mobile Digital Fabrication Lab
Ever wondered how long it would take to travel from Rome to Constantinople at the peak of the Roman Empire? Or from Luna to Larissa? Or Parma to Thessalonica? This map of the Roman World created at Stanford University is awesomely realistic — all the ancient transportation lines on it actually existed 2,000 years ago. More »
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This interactive travel map of the Roman Empire is like Oregon Trail meets Civilization
Okay, technically this isn’t a lava lamp, but you could have fooled me, given the mellow music and the drifting plumes of colored liquid. Researchers at Cambridge performed an experiment to find out more about fluid dynamics by coming up with two completely different ways that liquids can mix due to Rayleigh-Taylor instability, along with a video to watch if/when you’re stoned. More »
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Researchers create two different kinds of lava lamp… for science!