Gearfuse

Either the Japanese government has something against tripod manufacturers or the photography industry has been pulling the wool over our eyes for a century. A group of Japanese scientists from Nishi Lab of the University of Electrocommunications have determined that photos taken with cameras that are anchored to a tripod typically have more camera shake.

A new tool that determines camera shake by measuring the effects of shutter vibration and mirror slap has concluded that SLR cameras on a tripod can actually shake more than when handled manually. The shaking can lower resolution by as much as 75%. You’d expect a statistic like this with a DIY tripod, but a real piece of gear?

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I knew this day would come. The day I attempt to go on a beautiful vacation to Mars, only to realize that I’m really a secret agent fighting against an evil and corrupt Mars administrator. Yes, Total Recall.

Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, a brain scientist and co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School, and his team were successful in removing new and old memories in mice by over-expressing a protein critical to brain cell communication just as the memory was recalled. What does this mean for humans? We’re all going to get mind-wiped and turned into a zombie army. That, or the Total Recall thing.

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We haven’t covered much cloaking technology and that’s a shame because it’s starting to come into its own. Stefan Enoch at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille, France says that established cloaking principles, such as steering microwave light around an object, could be applied to ocean waves. Because cloaking technology is still in its infancy, scientists are still working on tackling 3-D objects, but we’ve got 2-D down. This works in our favor because waves are essentially 2-D.

To put this theory to the test, researchers built a prototype. The image above is the said prototype which is tested in a wave pool. Acting like a whirlpool, the device produces forces which pull the water along the concentric corridors as a result of the waves repelling off the pillars. This causes all the water to go everywhere except the center of the cloak. Think of the possibilities.

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Everyday scientists are creating new ways to develop the things we take for granted. Eliminating the problematic ways of creating plastic with oil or gas, scientists of Genomatica Inc. have formed strains of bacteria which produce plastic.

This is great news as this bacteria requires little more than sugar and water to produce butanediol, the compound used to manufacture many things such as plastic, fibers or pharmaceuticals.  Genomatica predicts that within the year, this energy-efficient process will cost less than the current processes used to create plastic.

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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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It’s probably not in the best interest of mankind to try and recreate a big bang right here on our planet, but scientists just can’t get enough of attempting to destroy existence as we know it. For those not familiar with the Large Hadron Collider, it’s the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex that stretches a whopping 17 miles. Scientists are using it in order to disprove and/or prove many theorems we aren’t sure about today.

Well, I woke up this morning, so the world hasn’t ended. This must mean the Large Hadron Collider was a success. In celebration of waking up to see another blue sky, DVICE has posted a slew of stunning images of the Large Hadron Collider.
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I’m tempted to say, “Title says it all.” and be done with this post but I can’t get over how funny these SCIENCE! t-shirts are. My favorite is the scientist with the cowboy hat riding what appears to be an amoeba.

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This video is pretty incredible. These scientist have trained monkeys to control a robotic arm using only their brain, with the help of an implanted brain chip. The video discusses the relationship between monkey experimentation and the thought of one day using similar chips on paralyzed humans.

Look at that poor monkey shoved into that plastic box thingy. We can’t help but feel bad for the little guy. Even though if we tried to show him sympathy he’d probably lay the smack down on us with his new robotic arm. Is world domination next? — Andrew Dobrow

VIDEO: Monkey Controls Robotic Arm With Mind [Random Good Stuff]