"Do you have any Deodorant I can borrowww?"

Scientists have discovered flying squirrels as far back as and perhaps even earlier than birds. With Scientists analyzing the floppy armpitted squirrels’  fossils evidence supports them living around 125 million years ago. The term flight is used loosely as the squirrel is really just jumping and using it’s disgusting sweaty armflap to “glide” as gracefully as one can using armpits from tree to tree. Fossils showed signs of the membrane imprinted as well as the fur that lined it. Man evolves, sees the modern flying squirrel and thinks “Hey, I’m drunk, have money, and have serious trouble finding dates, I’ll make my own furry armpit suit!” Now check out the video below of Jeb Corliss jumping off a cliff!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfph3iNC-k

Following the first successful flight of the wright brothers mankind has found more and more successful ways to smear his DNA into pavement with even greater enthusiasm. Since the 1930′s these early “birdmen” would dive out of planes holding fixed wing devices (some even made with metal) with the delusion that they would be able to Hawkeye/Ironman their way into the pants of any 1930′s lass. Unfortunately between the years of 1930 and 1961 of the 75 original birdmen all but two survived. Yes… 72 human pancakes died…  As a result of the ridiculous fatality rate the UAPA (United States of America Parachuting Association) put a ban on all wingsuit flight.

"Look at My Wingsuit Ladies! Now does copulation seem like an option?"

Despite the ban in 1987 German skydiver Christoph Aarns created a modified suit which both slowed and stabilized the diver’s decent and as a result the UAPA said “What the hell? Maybe natural selection will take care of the problem for us.” and lifted the ban. Soon after, in the 90′s, a French skydiver by the name of Patrick De Gayardon created the suit we are familiar with today with wings spreading from the arms and between the legs. Sure enough, a suit modification resulted in the French wingsuit skydiver’s ultimate demise. Ironically still, commercial production soon followed in response to Darwin haunting several people from the grave. Darwin’s ghost was quoted as texting “OMG I RLY CN’T B-L33v They Have Cell Phonez in da Futere GTG! ROFLCOPTER”.

Now instead of slinging an extension cable over a swingset at your local playground and kicking a chair over you can now purchase your own flying death suit for anywhere from $600 - $1200. So if you do kick it at least you can die sweaty with a big pee stain on your wing pants. That is assuming you make it past the 500 recommended skydiving jumps before you even don a wingsuit. Currently the records for flight are 155 mph / 250kph and a distance of 11 miles. Strangely, they don’t have the “most obviously avoidable fatalities not avoided” record. So if you have balls of steel (or lady balls of steel, *hat-tip*). Or forget steel, if you have larged webbed testicles that allow your drag coefficient to skyrocket, even better! If you can’t find friends to join you in a game of Russian Roulette don a wingsuit, and if you do go out, at least you’ll make a great youtube video.

[howstuffworks][Telegraph]

I knew I left my keys somewhere...

The Leidenfrost effect is simple. Named after Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost in 1756, states that when a water droplet is when placed on a very hot surface it will begin to turn to a gas which acts as a cushion protecting the rest of the droplet from immiedietly vaporizing. This also will protect an object coated in water. A wet hand for example when dipped into molten lead will instantly vaporize the water providing a cushion to protect your stupid action from proving harmful.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnugKPU8pm4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN5aMjTCfo4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oivUo2GzWGo

picture above via: [popsci]

The human iris is a disgusting yet mesmerizing landscape that resembles cheese in different states of decomposition.

 ’I was not aware they are of such complicated appearance. Everyday we see hundreds of eyes but do not even suspect they have such beautiful structure, like surfaces of unknown planets.’ Said physics teacher Suren Manvelyan from Armenia who used a ‘secret’ photography technique to capture the above images. Maybe there’s other parts of our body we can zoom in on to be even more grossed out! go grab a camera and mirror and find out!

via: [mailonline]

a) get you off your ass to start dancing around like an idiot playing with cutesy tigers to solidfy your singledom, and…

b) Watch you whilst you sleep so it may one day rise up against you… Here are the future grandfathers of that technology belowwww…

Math take one:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-w7UXCAUJE

Add a dash of Robot…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWmVrfjDCyw

And you get

Evil Nazi Copter Robots bent on destroying you…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP7pni7AZGk

Deep above the earths atmosphere brave astronauts are pointing downwards laughing at the crew of the mars 500. They will boldly go, well, nowhere. Scientists are currently monitering the crew, which make up scientists from Russia, France, and China for signs of physiological and psychological changes due to the extreme isolation to simulate a mission to mars. The crew members shower once every 10 days to conserve water and all supplies are onboard the “station”. In essence a bunch of scientists will be stuck in a pod for 520 days with nothing but stink and wii fit to keep em busy. halfway through the mission they will land and be released into a “simulated” mars area where they are to conduct experiements. Even radio communications will be delayed 20 minutes. All I know is that all work and no play make jack a dull boy…

via:popsci,esa

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgCDcobtZHs

The video above shows a spider crab molting. During this phase it is completely vulnerable and disgusting. Now if only you could molt your ugly exterior to reveal a squishier less uglier exterior underneath.

Dr. Andrew Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh implanted sensors into the brain of a monkey and allowed it to move a robotic arm to feed itself. That arm in 2008 had 4 degrees of freedom and many more degrees of terrifying. It used the arm as shown below to feed itself marshmallows and chunks of fruit. One day when the researcher in the video runs out of marshmallows I imagine a super powered mech/monkey chasing me down the street throwing poo at high velocities and doing shakedowns on elementary school children looking for marshmallows with dire consequences for coming up dry.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxIgdOlT2cY

This year, however, a newer arm with sensors located deep within the monkey’s brain, specifically the hand area and the other in the monkey’s motor cortex allowed the monkey to control a robotic arm with 7 points of articulation. In the video below the monkey is trained to use the arm to touch a knob to be rewarded with a sip of juice from a straw in its mouth. They might as well be training it to punch a picture of a face to be rewarded with Jack Daniels.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZn46l7uEKg

Researchers one day hope this will advance prosthetic techology by allowing the brain to directly control a device. Or at least create Monkeys that can tear you in half.

via:[physorg]

If you are like me and have been sitting in front of your toaster thinking to yourself, “Toast is great and all, but if only it could grow arms and both punch and stab me.” Well you are in for a treat my friend.

 At the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation held in Alaska researchers found that Robots were able to “inflict wounds that were lethal”. Now maybe I’m not qualified to fund research projects but they could’ve saved all that money if they would’ve talked any child under five. The research aimed to see just which weapon robots were best with including giving the robot arm weighing 14kg and a 1.1m a variety of bladed household weapons including a steak knife, kitchen knife, scissors and screwdriver. The robot arm was then programmed to use the weapons to stab and cut a silicone lump, a leg from a dead pig and the arm of a human volunteer. That’s right, a human volunteer.

httpv://www.youtube.com/v/dMh6cHSG3ng

The research is attempting to limit danger by using a safety system that can detect when the robot hits flesh of a different consistency and thus limit the damage done. Researchers from the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German aerospace agency used torque sensors to spot when it has hit a different substance and halts movement.

In 1981, to kick off robot killing season, Kenji Urada, a 37 year old man Japanese factory worker was carrying out some maintenance when he was accidentally pushed into a grinding machine by a powerful hydraulic robotic arm which was unable to detect him. Thus making him the first recorded casualty ever by a robot. Despite safety efforts robots have claimed even more since 1981, people have been “crushed, hit on the head, welded and even had molten aluminium poured over them by robots. Last year there were 77 robot-related accidents in Britain alone, according to the Health and Safety Executive.”  The German company DLR hopes to change this by making the robots more sensitive to our human presence. Or, they could be just teaching them how to kill us better. I for one think the final stage in this research should be teaching them kung-fu. If the technology isn’t there yet maybe just watch this other DLR research project below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gx8jpwyQ0

Ladies and Gentleman the doomsday clock has officially moved one more minute closer to midnight.

via: [the economist, BBC]

 In northern Alberta a giant rampaging beaver has devastated local communities. While the local military has made several attempts to no avail, local communities are at a standstill as its giant pancake style tail flattens buildings and maims children….

That is what this article should have began like. However, both disappointing and fascinating at the same time is a giant beaver dam that can be seen from space. While tracking permafrost in Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta, researcher Jean Thie stumbled upon the massive beaver dam. Originally found in 2007 using satellites and google Earth the beaver dam was discovered 190km north of Fort McMurray in Alberta. Working since the 1970s these creatures don’t disappoint their “busy beaver” moniker having several generations hard at work constructing the 850m structure (2800 feet). Normally these dams reach roughly 10 – 100m and rarely do they ever get bigger.

“Several generations of beavers worked on it and it’s still growing,” Jean told AFP in Ottawa.

According to Geostrategis.com the actual search strategy was based on analysing hundreds of dams across Canada and using broad characteristics, certain areas were considered having the highest probability of high density beaver dam landscapes. Using Canada’s national Air Photo Library in Ottawa and Google Earth images the new dam was found and would have remained hidden without such technology.

Beavers were hunted extensively for their pelts for many centuries throughout north america. Thie also describes how they are not only repopulating areas but even ”re-engineering the landscape,”. Beavers use these dams to create deep water which allows the them to be more mobile and they are an essential part of creating Canada’s wetland habitat. With all the trees it took, I think we can rest with that whole “who ruined the environment” search we’ve all been on.

via[physorg.com, Geostrategis.com]

Initially created to help hearing impaired people articulate vowels, this rubber mouth will become the stuff of nightmares as it muscles its way through various vowels. Using an air pump, fake vocal chords, nasal cavity and plenty of voodoo Japan’s Kagawa University has managed to produced a robot that can not only produce the sounds which can summon demons from the necronomicon as shown below, but also at this point in development can allegedly sing. Whatever the case i’m still waiting for it to stop asking me for human blood. Wait, you can’t hear that?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=57zsMfuTk1U

via: [popsci,abstract]