Aug 24
pic nicked from here German scientists have made a robot that can imitate the waggle dance that bees use to communicate. RoboBee is stuck to the end of a rod attached to a computer, which determines its “dance” moves. The rod is also connected to a belt which makes it vibrate. Like a real bee, …
Jun 26
As part of their social media marketing campaign, pharmaceutical company, Lion, has invented a cockroach forecast. CScout says: The company created a website outlining a map of Japan and its prefectures. When a cockroach is spotted users enter it into the site inputting details such as where, when, how many and how it made you feel. The …
Jan 15
Female tears of grief reduce arousal in men. And not just because of the smeared makeup. Apparently, lady tears smell icky. Just a slight whiff turns men off. According to the study’s director, Noam Sobel: “We know that women tend to cry more during menstruation, when it’s not an effective time to conceive.” So ladies, …
May 01
Scientists say that they’re about ten years away from being able to produce meat without slaughtering animals. They can actually do it now but there’s a minor problem: It currently takes about a million dollars to produce a single hamburger. So it’s a luxury item. But improvements in manufacturing should lower the price. The first …
Jan 29
At the University of California, Berkeley, researchers have created a remote control beetle. Now, this isn’t a mechanical beetle. It’s a real beetle. Controlled by remote. This task was accomplished using six electrodes and a 1.3 gram radio module on the beetle’s back. It almost seems easy enough to do at home. As part of …
Jan 08
Right before mosquitoes mate, they change the flapping of their wings to create a harmonious duet. A study out of Cornell discovered that these love bugs “interact acoustically with each other when the two are within earshot — a few centimetres of each other.” The note they create is about an octave and a half …
Oct 12
The insane might be true. And we’ve hit a reality bump. Some people at anti-war protests are now claiming that they are being watched by insects. This sounds like a paranoid fantasy. It might not be. In March of 2006 I wrote about DARPA’s interest in manufacturing cyborg insects. It’s now October of 2007. They …
Dec 11
Queen Bees get around. Although they only need the love juice of a single male to reproduce for the rest of their lives, the Queen Bee will risk dangerous flights in order to mate with a dozen or more males. They’re like Britney Spears on a Saturday night. Although people have known about the insatiable …
Apr 27
Life is a funny and sad thing. Dogs kept their eyes on the cat threat for years, striving to make themselves cuter, more useful and even more affectionate than their major rivals. They rescued people from buildings, dressed up for Halloween and even learned how to smell cancer. With AIBO safely put down, our canine …
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (sci-fi), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap.
