Remember that show The Incredible Crash Test Dummies? It makes you wonder: what’s so incredible about crash test dummies, anyway? It’s probably because they come in all different shapes and sizes. Short ones, fat ones, little ones and even tall ones plant their ass in a driver seat and brace for impact.

Oobject must be fans of the 1993 Dummies cartoon show, because it’s posted a collection of crash test dummies used in a variety of different situations. Bet you didn’t know that a motorcycle-riding crash test dummy is made up differently than that of a pedestrian crash test dummy just waiting to be run over at a crosswalk.

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The CAPTCHA process is famous for preventing spam and helping translate books. So, Jeffrey Augustine went back to third grade arts and crafts to create the Dream Captcha. It’s inspired by Native American dream catchers and the “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart” used by many online sites to inhibit automated software from posing as you or I. Say goodbye to CAPTCHA nightmares and hello to sweet dreams.

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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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Thanks to Nissan’s Biomimetic Robot Car (BR23C), crash test dummies could find themselves out of a job. Having been compared to R2-D2 (but bearing no resemblance whatsoever), the BR23C will not maintain your car like a mechanic would, rather, it will play the part of backseat driver. The robot is the “poster-bot” for Nissan’s new crash prevention technology.

Drawing upon inspiration from bees in nature, the BR23C uses a laser range finder sensor to detect obstacles within a 180-degree radius and forwards that information to itself giving it plenty of time to prevent head-on collisions. Nissan was thinking that the best way to prevent crashes is to avoid obstacles altogether. Brilliant. Check out the video to see the robot avoid women.

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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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Oobject has posted 10 videos of ejection seat tests that show the safety measures involved in testing a fighter jet ejection seat in action.  If you thought crash testing cars was extreme, check out some of these videos of pilots risking their lives in the name of safety testing. No crash test dummies here, folks. Only live flesh and bone are propelled in these videos.

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Can’t wait to play the upcoming expansion Wrath Of The Lich King for World Of Warcraft? Blizzard understands and has offered a chance win an invitation to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King beta on their website. Unlike the Burning Crusade beta invite process, Blizzard wants to limit their invitations. Only players who have expressed active interest in participating and actually testing the game as opposed to other beta testers who neglect to report bugs.

When the time comes, the beta will be open for many. But until then, this is your one and only chance at playing the expansion to get the one-up on all of your buddies who desperately want in on the beta as well.

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So how do you do what the title says? You just have to turn this little thing on, hold it in your hand, ask your friend the question, have them give you a real answer, and this baby will let you know if you should find new friends. This sounds like such a cool product, until the novelty wears off and you are stuck with a lie detector and negative $40. Also, you will have to move to a different state because every who knows you will now avoid you because they are afraid of the fact that you might be testing their every word. People allow a little slack sometimes. Looking past the problems of this device, it does have some practical applications. Maybe the police could make use of it to test if someone they pull over is telling the truth, but we already have other tests for stuff like drunkenness or being drugged up. Last minute note: you won’t be able to surprise anyone with the lie detector because they have to say three truths first. So much for the friend and girlfriend idea… — Nik Gomez

DeFIBulator Lie Detector [via Gearlog]