Scientists are always trying to replicate phenomenons here on earth. With the Large Hadron Collider attempting to test various theories and even replicate the big bang, you’d think scientists all over the world have their hands full.

On the contrary, scientists at the University of Maryland have their own little maniacal tests to conduct. They’ve built a ten foot high, 30 ton apparatus that’ll attempt to generate a magnetic field by spinning liquid sodium metal, much like the way Earth produces its own magnetic field. John Biggs of CrunchGear suggests putting beer in it. We couldn’t agree more.

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Master Lock claims that 4-percent of all robberies are due to iPod thefts, so why not slap a bike lock on it? You just spent your entire month’s allowance on that brand new iPod Touch. Now, you’re looking for a lock so you can hang it up on any street post to force the general public into listening to whatever it is you listen to nowadays.

You’ll be dismayed to know that Master Lock’s iCage, the metal case that secures your iPod to a fixed object, is only designed for the 4GB and 8GB iPod Nano at $14.99 and iPod Classic models at $19.99 per lock. The latest Apple gear won’t fit into this. What a bummer.

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If I was a hacker of any sort, I’d probably get a lot of credit for picking such a cool fucking name like LockWasher. That aside, LockWasher is a guy who makes all kinds of cool doo-dads. A jack of all trades, if you will. Found on MAKE, these robots are made from various bits of junk, electronic, scrap metal and the like. Really beautiful, retro-inspired designs. You can only stare in amazement at the craft, wishing your grubby little paws could own a few of these bad boys. Keep dreaming (of electric sheep).

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Land Rover is coming up on its 60th anniversary and to celebrate the occasion, sculpture artist Gerry Judah has created nothing short of a masterpiece. This 34 meter-high installation at the Goodwood Festival of Speed features several, from what I can make out, Range Rovers (?) scaling the structure. The entire thing weighs an astronomical 120 tons and is on display for all to see. Little is known on how the feat was accomplished, but one can imagine it took a lot of time and a whole lot of metal.

One thing remains certain: the Land Rover is still the ultimate vehicle for going off-road.

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Money clips can be made out of anything. Paper clips, rubber bands, you name it and a money clip is made of it.  Designer Scott Amron is trying to dupe people into buying either a $12 pre-made money clip or a $9 DIY kit to make your own. The design is simple: a dollar bill with one end taped with a magnet and the other end taped with a piece of metal.

It folds around your wad of bills as if it is just another dollar among them and it is! This simple and efficient design for a money clip makes me wonder if it would be more rewarding to forgo Amron’s offer of a DIY kit in favor of an attempt to make your own similar concept for a slimmer impact on your budget.

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How do you get your anger our? Some people like punching walls and telephone poles. Others use stress balls or meditation. But sometimes, you just have to pick up a heavy duty weapon and beat the shit out of a piece of steel. Am I right? Huh? HUH?! YEAH!

The Do Hit Chair by Droog Design is a a cube made with 0.4″ thick steel. To mold your own chair, just grab a sledgehammer and start beating the hell out of it. Once you’re happy with the design, take a rest from the exertion by grabbing a seat on your new chair. The cost of a Do It Chair is a huge turn-off though. $6718 for a pre-hammered chair and $5924 for your non-hammered piece of steel. Grr, prices like that make me want to beat the shit out of blocks of metal! (more…)

So what do you think of when someone mentions metal in your mouth? Headgear? Braces? Or a toothbrush? This is about the latter.

The TiFinity toothbrush uses titanium bristles to clean your teeth and last for an extremely long time. This toothbrush has a lifespan of 2 years! So what do you pay for a toothbrush that lasts for 2 years? $50. Sounds expensive, and it might be depending on how much you spend on nylon toothbrushes every year. One really cool feature (which is partially why it lasts for 2 years) is that it is impermeable by water, so there isn’t that immense ammount of bacteria that you are/aren’t used to. –Nik Gomez

TiFinity Toothbrush [via UberGizmo]

It is quite obvious that the winter holiday season is now gone. It would be wrong to say that it left just a quickly as it came, because the Christmas merchandise usually goes up for sale around October. So now that all of the holiday parties are over, what are you going to do with all of this extra food, well here’s what you can do with the wine that you didn’t drink (shame on you). This inexpensive little device creates a vacuum inside of your wine bottle so that the wine doesn’t go bad so quickly. It only costs $12, and with a couple pumps, your wine will be ready to stay for a few more days in the fridge. It is made of a simple brushed metal and sits on top of your pre-openned bottles. One little bit of advice, unless you want to go into explanation mode to all of your new sophisticated friends, don’t let them see this awesome gadget. Not only will they have one in less than a week, you will lose that cool feeling that you had discovered something for yourself for once… — Nik Gomez

Wine Bottle Seal [via UberReview]

This pen is just a hunk of metal alloy molded to look like a pen. Why is this significant? Because it does exactly what a real ink pen does: writes on paper. It doesn’t leave the same type of mark that an ink pen does, this pen’s marks cannot be erased or smudged! At only $30, it’s a bargain, and  the maker rates it at longer than a 25 year life span. A cool little bit of history:

In the Medieval period, artists and scribes often used a metal stylus in order to draw on a specially prepared paper surface. Generally known as Metalpoint, or Silverpoint when the stylus was made of silver, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Rembrandt all used this technique.

High tech? Maybe it’s more innovative than high tech; it’s making the best use of what we have to do better than current ways. — Nik Gomez

Metal Alloy Pen [via Newlaunches]