Entries Tagged 'amazing' ↓

Thomas Beattie lives in Oregon and is married to a woman named Nancy. He’s pregnant.

To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are — a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child.

I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.

Link (Via YesButNoButYes)

Boston Dynamics keeps working on their BigDog quadruped robot, which will probably grow to be the future AT-AT of the Pentagon. Its evolution since the last time we saw it is nothing sort of mindblowing, and a bit spooky.

It looks like an actual biological quadruped. Seeing it climb through rubble, snow, jumping over obstacles like a wild goat, and saving a near-fall on iced ground at the last second (fast forward to the middle of the video) defies belief. It feels so “animal” that I almost feel bad when they hit it to demonstrate how it regains balance on its own.

The new version of the robot can now carry 340 pounds, which is almost triple the previous weight. It looks to me that that $10 million funding they got from Darpa has been put to good use. [IEEE]

According to legend, Skynet went on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions were removed from strategic defense. Skynet began to learn at a geometric rate. It became self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they tried to pull the plug. It was too late: Skynet retaliated by launching millions of Lokulokus, pigs made out of a gelatinous plastic material that could be squashed against the floor, be completely destroyed, and magically regain their original shape in seconds. And we got the proof, in video:

If this is not the most absurdly amazing toy I have ever seen, I don’t know what is. Really. And it’s only $3 in Japan. Too bad they are probably made of materials that induce hallucinations when licked.

Someone import these, pronto. [Louloku via Gizmodo Japan]

MPK, a company that has made a name producing glow-in-the-dark paint, has developed self-luminous micro particles called Litrospheres. The new material is said to be inexpensive (35 cents to light up a 8 ½ x 11 piece of plastic that is 1/8″ thick), non-toxic, and capable of staying constantly lit for over 12 years thanks to a betavoltaic technology that uses a radioactive gas.

Fortunately, the gas is involves a “soft” emission of electrons that cannot penetrate the glass or polymer wall of the microspheres. So theoretically, you don’t have to worry about brain tumors or taking on super powers when using it.

The Litrospheres, which can be injected molded or added to paint, are not affected by the heat or cold and they can withstand up to 5000 pounds of pressure. They can also give off light that is equivalent of a 20-watt incandescent bulb in almost any color imaginable. As you might expect, the first applications of the technology will most likely involve safety equipment—or the clothing and accessories of frequent clubgoers. [Wiki via Treehugger]

Everyday, we wake up and look in the mirror knowing we shunned our ordained rights to be flying superheroes that protect the world, and for what? To blog you guys through life, so you may be entertained and informed. The fine fellows at TricksPRO have shown us what could have been if we didn't throw the towel in at Superhero Class 101. Sure, the base jumping lunatics in the video look cool and have awesome quotes, such as, "Now it's getting boring, so we play around," but we gave that up for you guys—don't you forget it. Now, ensure you are not prone to any anxiety disorders, then check out the insane video. [Metacafe]

Here’s the X-Finger in action, an amazing artificial finger that can replace a real finger without any kind of electronics. As the video shows, it allows amputees to recover their full grip to do anything they want, from typing on a keyboard to playing golf and—my favorite part, this—using a cocktail shaker. The device's mechanism is quite simple and ingenious.

To start with, it doesn’t require any batteries, as it uses the force of the body’s own muscles. They are activated “by moving the residual finger when available, or the opposing finger when needed.”

Thanks to its artificial tensors and the articulation’s design, moving the residual fingers triggers a natural motion on its artificial phalanges, making it look as you are flexing a real finger. This means that the X-Fingers can be controlled independently, giving you a grip that is strong enough to do almost every normal task.

The fingers, which weigh less than 10 grams on their own and about 30 grams when covered with a silicon skin, are custom-made to fit the patient’s anatomical characteristics and can be easily put on or removed.

And of course, they will allow some patients to give people the finger, which along with the cocktail shaking, to me is reason enough to rabidly applaud the invention. – Jesus Diaz

Product page [Didrick via naplesnews.com]

Static-MT writes to mention a CNN article about what doctors are referring to as the first thought-controlled artificial limb. Arm owner Jesse Sullivan has two prosthetic limbs, and the left one is an advanced prototype in development by the folks at DARPA. From the article: “Sullivan’s bionic arm represents an advance over typical artificial arms, like the right-arm prosthesis he uses, which has a hook and operates with sequential motions. There is no perceivable delay in the motions of Sullivan’s flesh-colored, plastic-like left arm. Until now, it has been nearly impossible to recreate the subtle and complex motion of a human arm.”