Bunker.jordan

In 356-323 B.C. Alexander the Great of Macedon conquered almost the entire known world by military force. Surprisingly, not much is known about how he did it! An ancient and mysterious armor called Linothorax was apparently used by Alexander and his men which may have been one of the reasons for his ever so successful conquest. A group of students at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay (UWGB) have been investigating in detail and making their own version of it.

The problem is this type of armor decomposes naturally over time unlike more solid artifacts of stone and metal — meaning there is no physical proof or evidence of its existence. It has been described in around two dozen pieces of ancient literature and seen in over 700 visuals such as mosaics, sculptures and paintings — but there are no real examples of it. It is made (or thought to be) of many layers of linen glued together, much the same way that Kevlar body armor works.

The cool thing about this project is the students are designing their own Linothorax using authentic fabrics and glues that would have been available in that time period. The samples have been quite successful, surviving sharp arrows, swords, and even swinging axes at it. If this is the secret to Alexander the Great’s success… no wonder!

The group has lots of information on the topic and a few videos — stick around to learn more!

[Thanks Repkid!]

Filed under: classic hacks, wearable hacks

In this recent series of digital artworks, Brooklyn-based graphic designer Victoria Siemer begins with dreamy landscapes of mountainous forests shrouded in fog and clouds and then inserts giant reflective fragments that rise from the ground. The inversed image creates the uncanny effect of a monolithic mirror that towers over the photograph like a kind of portal. Siemer says via email that the images are open for interpretation, but her work often deals with the idea of visual or emotional fragmentation which originated from her college thesis. Another example is her recent series of humanized computer error messages recently making the rounds. You can see more over on her blog (occasionally nsfw). (via My Modern Met)

From Dyson’s Airblade to more straight-forward designs, hand dryers are run-of-the-mill these days. Now a team of designers out of the US has turned the idea upside down to create the Body Dryer. .. Continue Reading Body Dryer offers an alternative to the yucky ol' bath towel

Section: Around The Home

Tags: Bathroom, Indiegogo

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This pendant isn't just shaped like the human heart on the outside; when you open it up, the ventricals and blood vessels line up on the inside. The chain even runs through the superior vena cava and the left pulmonary vein.

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On Mars exists a patchwork of rectangular ridges, a mysterious feature unique to the red planet. While better and better photographs narrow down the plausible theories, we still don't know exactly what created these puzzling structures.

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Nikola Tesla's ghostly face isn't the most significant part of this photograph. It's the light—emitted by a fluorescent light bulb of Tesla's own invention. It was taken in 1894, decades before fluorescent lights came into popular use.

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lordofvermin:

weirdletter:

Squid in a Coat, by Alexander Petrakov (Hapexamendios), via CGHub.

This makes me so happy.

pfisiar:

System is collapsing (v2) by thomaswievegg

Fat volume

Composite books are objects that unite several books, usually because readers anticipated they would consult them at the same time. Textbooks used by students, both those in medieval and early-modern times, may hold four of five bound-together individual books. The fat volume seen here is a rarity because it presents no less than thirty individual books fitted in a single binding. They are German almanacs from the 17th century, held together by a plain paper wrapper which is stretched to the limit. Almanacs had a short half-life because the information they presented - rising and setting of sun and moon, hours of full tides, eclipses, church festivals - was time sensitive. You would normally throw the cheap productions out when their time had come. Not these, though. For some reason the reader who owned them decided to unite them into one hefty volume - creating a book that was nearly impossible to handle.

Pic: Yale, Beinecke Library, Call number 2010 300. This is where I got the images from, and here is the full contents of the book.

When it comes to entertainment, there are few other media that feature the level of user interaction of video games. Now, researchers at Stanford University are looking to make games more interactive. They've developed a prototype controller that monitors the player's physiological responses, then changes the gameplay to make it more engaging based on the player's feelings. .. Continue Reading New game controller gets emotional

Section: Games

Tags: Emotions, Psychology, Stanford University, Video Games

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• Nintendo unveils the Wii U Pro controller

If you're a parent wondering what your child will look like as an adult, now you don't need to wonder anymore. Researchers at the University of Washington claim to have developed software that can accurately predict what a child will look like as an adult, up to the age of 80. The technique can even work from poorly lit photos, and could prove a big help in missing persons cases... Continue Reading New software accurately predicts what your children will look like as adults

Section: Science

Tags: Children, Research, Software, University of Washington

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• New computer technologies shown to expose personal information

As Gizmag discovered when we got to briefly try out the 3Doodler handheld 3D printer back in January, sketching in mid-air can be great fun. You're unlikely to be running off any musical instruments or flying machines, but it is possible to serve up something more elaborate than a squiggle ball with a little practice. If the large novelty pen or jumbo marker form factor of the WobbleWorks device is just a tad on the chunky side for your money, London-based Lix Pen has heard your cry. Its 3D printing pen is claimed the smallest in the world... Continue Reading Lix develops 3D printing pen that's lighter and leaner than the rest

Section: Electronics

Tags: 3D Printers, 3D Printing, Art, Handheld

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• Microsoft releases 3D printer app for Windows 8.1
• Flexible Thin Film Solar Cells to be printed like money

It may not be to quite the same level achieved by Victor Frankenstein, but work by a team from the University of Edinburgh is likely to have significant real-world implications in the field of regenerative medicine. For the first time, the team has successfully regenerated a living organ in mice, not by using a jolt of electricity, but by manipulating DNA... Continue Reading World-first regeneration of a living organ

Section: Medical

Tags: Regenerative Medicine, The Immune System, University of Edinburgh

Related Articles:

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You can turn up the quality of any costume by adding some well-made props, and a Deku Mask would be a great addition to a Link costume. Instructables user meanlilkitty built a great version of the mask from foam and papier mache. There aren’t too many supplies, and other than investing a time and elbow grease, it’s relatively simple. I’m especially fascinated by how she made the eyes:

The eyes I made out of yellow celluloid with orange paint to make the “glow”. Once you like the color and shape, glue into place on the inside of the mask. The leaves are silk leaves from Michaels and were a bit tricky to glue. One I found three leaves I liked that had the right color and shape, I took them off the fake plant and removed the stem backing. Now that the leaves are softer and easier to bend, I was able to glue them to the inside of the mask, then bend them while the glue dried so they could stand erect on top of the mask and not flop over.

Read more at Instructables.

3D Materials Inspiration – Fish3d: A New Touch-sensitive, Interactive Modeling Environment. From SolidSmack.com:

If you’ve been fishing, you know the layer of slime that covers the fish, protecting it from your nasty hand bacteria. It’s also a defense mechanism that helps protect the fish from predators and, as it turns out, is much more than what it seems. Particularly in the case of the Hagfish. Researches at MIT’s Media Ecology Lab have discovered a new way to interact with our Hagfish friends via the slime they produce while at the same time developing parametric surface geometry, a development that could very well push product design into your surrounding and away from the desktop.

A small amount of slime is first scraped from the body of an anesthetized Hagfish. Added to distilled water, the tightly bundled cells unravel, immediately binding the threads together to form large amounts of viscous material. This material is highly formable where the addition of electric current manipulates the substance to form on, around, or against items, even to the level of separate ‘parts’ being created, color added or opaqueness adjusted through simple touch/gestural interaction. The slime threads are the key. Dr. Fudge (real name) of the Comparative Biomaterials Lab states:

The slime is composed of fine protein slime threads as well as a mucus component that comes packaged in tiny vesicles. When these components are ejected from the slime glands, they combine synergistically to form a slime mass in which a large volume of water is entrained. Recent work by Julia Herr has investigated the chemical composition of the slime and the mechanisms of mucin vesicle stabilization a deployment. Tim Winegard recently published a paper on the mechanisms of thread skin deployment, which involves the unravelling of 15 cm long threads from subcellular structures…

These “slime threads” are similar to spider silk in their dimensions, but they differ in a couple of important ways that make them excellent candidates for such a biomimetic project. Slime threads are built within cells from intermediate filament proteins via a process of hierarchical self-assembly. This is quite different from the dynamic spinning process that transforms liquid crystalline spider silk proteins in the silk gland into an insoluble fibre.
These slime threads have even more potential for an interactive 3d modeling experience when they are still attached to the creature. Apparently, the Hagfish itself can be used as somewhat of an input device, directing viscosity of the materials, attach points and even patterned geometry….

Read More.

Interview with Gael Langevin from the InMoov Robot from Wevolver on Vimeo.

Wevolver shared this great interview with
Gael Langevin, Inventor Behind the Open Source Lifesize 3D Printed InMoov Robot. Via 3Ders.org.

Since October 2012, Gael Langevin has been building the InMoov robot step-by-step. Starting with an Arduino-controlled hand and forearm, the robot slowly came to life. The InMoov robot’s “skin,” joints, gears and many other pieces have been 3D printed.
Since 2012 people all over the globe have been printing and building the Inmoov robot. Right now parts of the InMoov are even being “hacked”to use as prosthetics. Truly amazing.
Wevolver invited Gael to come to the 2014 Arduino Day in Amsterdam to show and tell about his InMoov robot, since we are huge fans!

• Check out the Inmoov blog right here, or
• Check out the project on Wevolver.

Read More.

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Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

A team of engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University is developing a stick-on patch that makes health monitoring more flexible and practical. Building on previous work, the latest design replaces custom-made components with off-the-shelf, chip-based electronics to deliver a soft, tattoo-like epidermal electronic system for wireless health monitoring. .. Continue Reading Stretchy, health monitoring skin patch uses off-the-shelf components

Section: Health and Wellbeing

Tags: Sensors, Skin, University of Illinois, Wireless

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Although major construction on Andy Scott’s imposing ‘Kelpies’ sculptures near Falkirk, Scotland ended last November, this new timelapse from the Helix captures the enormity of the project in vivid detail. The gargantuan horse head sculptures completely dominate an otherwise flat landscape over the Forth & Clyde canal and promise to be a major attraction when they open to the public on April 21. The construction part takes up the first half of the video, you can jump to around 3:00 if you want to see pretty shots of the completed pieces. (via MeFi)

Thanks to Lauren Davis for the kind words.

If you've ever wondered just how skillful you might be at designing a solar system, here's your chance try your hand at it. A new game lets you build a solar system — and then see it action.

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Andrew Niccol's meta reality TV movie, The Truman Show is absolutely ripe for a television adaptation. And now, it's actually going to happen.

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An athlete competing at an Australian triathlon was sent to hospital after an aerial camera drone suddenly swooped down and smashed into her. The operator of the UAV claims someone nearby "channel hopped" the device — wresting control away from him.

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mhysafire:

kayleyhyde:

We all know that feeling, vending machine

Aw

After receiving an implant that electrically stimulates the spinal cord, four paraplegic men can now voluntarily move their previously paralyzed legs. It's a breakthrough that's poised to revolutionize the treatment of paralysis.

Read more...

Cool performance by Imogen Heap, Q&A on the glove controller below:

“Ernst Henne (1904-2005) was a distinguished German motorcycle racer and racecar driver. Between 1928 to 1937, he achieved a total of 76 land speed world records, the last on 28 November 1937 with the 279.5 km/h (173.7 mph) on a fully faired 500cc supercharged BMW. This record stood for 14 years.”

- Wikipedia

Taking on the task of building a mech or a Gundam is not simple. You’re committing to spending a lot of time and depending on the materials used, a fair amount of cash. If you’re interested though, RPF user Clivelee has put together an informative tutorial (it even has a table of contents) to walk you through the process. He created the Unicorn Gundam pictured above, so he knows his stuff. He goes over planning, materials, where to find the right tools, and each part of the body. Here’s a sample:

You can see the entire tutorial at The RPF.

While many people no doubt still look at Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci robotic surgical system as a sort of "wonder of the future," it's actually been around now for over 10 years. Therefore, it shouldn't come as a surprise that a new-and-improved model has just been announced. Among other things, the da Vinci Xi Surgical System promises a greater range of motion and more reach than its predecessor. .. Continue Reading da Vinci Xi Surgical System is ready to flex its arms

Section: Medical

Tags: Remote Control, Robotics, Surgery

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A major favorite at io9 HQ, Vertigo's FBP: Federal Bureau of Physics will make the leap from page to screen courtesy of Warner Bros., naturally. It's about the titular government agency, which deals in quantum disasters in a world where physics can change just like the weather.

Read more...

Once you realize you can make almost anything fly if you strap a big enough prop and motor to it, you really start thinking outside of the box. That’s what [Rodger] did and he’s come up with this very impressive 19lb, 5′ long X-Wing Fighter from Star Wars.

Recently [Rodger] has found new joy in making movie props come to life with the help of today’s technology. He started with Project Thunderball — a flying James Bond mannequin with a jet pack. From there he brought us the Marty McFly working hover-board, and now an X-Wing Fighter, his biggest flying machine yet.

It measures about 5 feet long, and is a tri-rotor design with three 100A ESCs, 1200W 1050KV motors, and 12″ rotors. The frame is made of PVC to conserve weight. Since it’s a tri-rotor with true vectored thrust, the X-Wing features much better yaw than quadrotors. Then only problem is it pivots around the odd prop out, meaning in this case, the X-Wing turns on its nose — instead of its tail.

Regardless, we can’t wait to see what [Rodger] tries flying next! Stick around to see the X-Wing in action.

Filed under: drone hacks