Chinese HospitalIntroduces AutomaticSperm Extractor ToMake Sperm DonationEasier

Sperm donation might be considered
taboo in a number of places the world
over but scientists seem to be making
the process easier.

 A hospital in Nanjing, China now has an automatic
sperm extractor at its disposal.

So much
for a hands-free device, huh? Let’s dive
into the more interesting details.


This piece of technology comes with a
massage pipe that the user can adjust
to suit his height.

 Upon setting the
desired amplitude, frequency and
temperature on the machine, the user is
good to go.

 A small display on the top
is featured for those who like some
‘visual’ assistance.

Director of urology
department feels it’s just to have the
machine in the hospital considering
many individuals have issues retrieving
sperm by the old conventional methods.


Arguably, standing and delivering like
that in a room full of other men is likely
to make many individuals feel awkward.


It depends what sort of slant you put on
it, I suppose.

A Quarter of theWorld’s Hazelnuts GoTowards MakingNutella

Nutella. Its that creamy, rich chocolate
hazelnut spread that makes you want to
gobble it up pronto. And like every
successful franchise, the beginnings of
Nutella were very humble. During the
Second World War, Chocolate
maker Ferrero faced a shortage of
cocoa so to make do he introduced
hazelnuts in to his recipe. Needless to
say this flavor caught on and was
refined in to the creamy goodness you
eat today.

Now, the opposite is happening. The
rest of the world might face a shortage
of hazelnuts because of Nutella. You
see most of the hazelnuts that Nutella
uses are grown in one specific location,
the rising steep slopes on the shores of
the Black Sea in Turkey.
Karim Azzaoui, the Vice President of
Sales for BALSU, USA which imports
hazelnuts to America, says that the
Turkish families that grow the nuts
follow a very traditional way of life.
They’ve been handpicking these nuts for
2000 years and, it seems, will continue
to do so.

Now Nutella purchases a hundred
thousand tonnes of hazelnuts every
year, approximately a quarter of the
world’s production, and that drives up
the price. This year, due to a late frost
in Turkey, the hazelnut blossoms froze
and the price went up 60%. Now the
race is on to find other places to grow
this dry fruit. You’ll find farms in Chile
and Australia and now, even in the
Northeastern United States.

A disease called the Eastern Filbert
Blight (EFB) would kill off the hazelnut
crop in Northeastern USA, but scientists
are quickly developing ways to counter
that. Some efforts are bearing fruit
(pun intended) at Rutgers University in
a project headed by Thomas Molnar, a
plant biologist. Molnar has set up
projects in Canada and the US to
breed EFB resistant strains of hazelnut
crop.

This Router Provides Wireless Charging Over a Five Meter Radius For Upto 12 Devices

Plugging in all your devices to charge
can be tedious, even more tedious than
finding out that your phone and laptop
and tablet are all out of juice at once.

Wireless charging is making small
strides at last and though some devices
have a wireless charging pad, you still
have to place the device on it to begin
charging. Nikola Tesla’s dream of
powering the planet is too far off to
make predictions but this year at CES,
a device from a company called
Energous aims to change that.

The device uses WattUp technology (not
as catchy as Wifi but maybe it’ll catch
on) to connect to your devices via
bluetooth and beam them energy at
5.7-5.8 GHz. Its able to deliver 1/4
Watts to 12 devices and 4 Watts to 4
devices at once at a distance of 1.5
meters. The power drops to about a
Watt at the 4.5 meter mark.

An iPhone charger delivers 5 Watts of
power but with this thing in the house
the makers are hoping your battery
power won’t run low in the first place.

There are also other perks. WattUp can
be made to charge what is essential
according to you. You can use it to
keep your phone at 100% at all times
and to charge your wireless mouse just
when its barely clinging on to life. And
if there are multiple Watt Up routers in
the house, your devices will just charge
depending on which router is the
closest to them.

Now for the bad, there are tremendous
energy losses with Wireless charging.
WattUp is only 70% efficient, and until
further notice, batteries from Energous
are the only ones that will be able to
charge with WattUp.
The price however is not a drawback.
At $300 the price is OK compared to
chargers.
Verdict: We all need this badly.

This Machine Turns Poop Into Drinking Water, And Bill Gates Drinks It

Well…not exactly. Bill Gates, the
billionaire philanthropist who cofounded
Microsoft has been famously working on
many projects as part of the goals of
his foundation (the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation) which have included
a campaign to rid the world of polio
and education reform. He has recently
chosen to spread awareness about the
importance of clean drinking water and
to bring that water to developing
countries where it is scarce.
Gates recently shared a blog post
pertaining to a machine designed by
Peter Janicki, CEO of Janicki Energy,
called the Janicki Omniprocessor. It
uses sewer sludge to produce clean
water and to generate electricity and
ash.

The waste is dried and burnt to
produce energy and the water from the
waste is treated until it is healthy and
safe to drink. As Gates described it, “I
watched the piles of feces go up the
conveyor belt and drop into a large
bin…I took a long taste of the end
result: a glass of delicious drinking
water.”
He claimed it was as good as any
water he had tasted from a bottle and
said that after he learned about the
engineering involved, he would drink it
every day.
“It’s that safe.” He remarks.
Bill Gates has been advocating a
redesign of the toilet since 2011 to
include a function to turn the waste in
to fertilizer or fuel and remove the
piped in water to remove the health
hazards that occur in the developing
world including water contamination.
Indeed, 700,000 children die every
year due to lack of clean drinking water
and nearly 2 billion people are exposed
to these health hazards.
The Omniprocessor is currently being
used as a pilot project in Senegal but
Gates would like to see it spread
further. It would energy problems and
save lives.
watch videohere

This Plane Can Take You Anywhere in the World Within Four Hours

The British Aerospace Company Reaction
Engines Limited is currently working on
an engine that will allow a plane to go
to any destination on earth in 4 hours.
The plane will be able to carry 300
passengers. Oh, and it will also be
able to fly to space.

watch video here

The engine installed in the plane is
called SABRE. The novelty of this engine
is that it employs a revolutionary
precooler. The contraption swallows air
and cools it at an alarming rate of 400
Mega Watts. This will allow the air to
cool more than a 1000 degrees
Celsius in a single one hundred and
fiftieth of a second. The air will be
cooled to -150 degrees Celsius in the
precooler, which contains condensed
helium in thin pipes, before entering
the engine.

The engine will be used in two planes,
one called LAPCAT will be used to
transport passengers from Sydney in
Australia to Brussels in Belgium in two
to four hours. The second plane is
called Skylon and is part of a joint
project with the European Space Agency
to grant cheaper and easier access to
space.

Skylon would cost $1.1 Billion apiece,
be 82 meters in length and would get
rid of windows completely. This maybe
a bummer to some folks but altogether,
this will provide for innovation. The
airline industry is looking to experiment
with wraparound view screens that will
show changing scenery, maybe that
would be better than staring out the
window trying to get a good look of
what just passed by.
SABRE will begin testing in 2019.

Meet Belty, A Smart Belt That Tells You When You’re Getting Fat

We’ve all had the sensation of having
eaten too much. It’s the point where
your stomach actually does begin to
swell. At that point you either stop or
foolishly continue in an effort to stuff
more in. Many who tend to go for the
latter loosen their belts. But wouldn’t
it be great if we didn’t have to do that
and continue on the road to obesity
unhindered?
Well there’s something called Belty that
was unveiled at the Consumer
Electronics Show (CES) on Sunday by a
French Startup called Emiota.
I
The belt is not just for people who love
to eat, it’s basically marketed as a
fitness belt that adjusts to your belly
size throughout the day. It tracks how
much food you’ve eaten, how much
exercise you’ve been doing and all
other physical activity throughout the
day. It does this through an app that is
connected to the in built gyroscope,
accelerometer and a bunch of other
sensors installed in the belt.

The belt is of course also equipped
with motors to tighten and loosen the
belt whenever needed. No pricing
details or release dates are known but
a representative from Emiota did say
that the belt is a high end product/
luxury item so it will be pricy.

Student Invents ‘Pretty’ Faucet That Saves Water By Making Beautiful Patterns

Simin Qui is a design student at
London’s Royal College of Art. He has
invented what he calls a ‘Swirl Faucet’.
He used a double turbine to give the
water a rotational velocity as it falls. It
creates beautiful and complex patterns
out of falling water and becomes a
work of art. It’ll make your daily
bathroom rituals a little more
interesting that’s for sure.

What’s more interesting and ingenious
is that these beautiful patterns slow
down the water by 15%. This let’s less
water through the drain as you wash
up.
Three different nozzle designs allow the
user to choose how they’d like to
conserve water. The faucet is also
operated with a touch button on top
making its design smooth and
continuous.
The faucet won an IF design concept
award in 2014.

Internet Archive Releases Over 2,300 Classic MS-DOS Games That Can Be Played In Browser

Internet Archive is a non profit digital
library with the goal of providing free
access to all knowledge to everyone on
the planet. Based in San Francisco, the
archive houses everything from
television programmes to research
papers to ancient texts. Recently, over
2300 MS-DOS games, most of which
were played in the 80s or the 90s,
were released online for free at the
Archive.
Games like The Oregon Trail,
Commander Keen and the very first
Prince of Persia hold a special spot in
the hearts of kids that grew up in the
last decades of the last century. This is
why the aforementioned news set the
internet on fire.
Carmen San Di
The question, where in the world is
Carmen San Diego has an answer :
archive.org.
Commander Keen awaits your arrival.
This game and literally thousands of
others are waiting to give the young at
heart a healthy dose of nostalgia.
Games like Castle Wolfenstein might
make a Playstation 4 owner snigger
and an Xbox One owner smug but the
oldies hold that spark that the most
rich graphics games like God of War
can’t ignite.
Who can forget the thrill of the old first
person shooters?
Or the rage of losing a life in Prince of
Persia?
Who needs Need For Speed when Cross
Country Canada can take you to hi
octane speeds in bits (literally).
Gears of War has nothing on this oldie.
And if you don’t care to download
them, these titles are all available
online to play for free.

World’s First 3D Printed Villas and Residential Buildings Constructed In China

On March 29, 2014, Shanghai became
home to ten 3D printed houses made of
concrete. Each was 200 square meters
and cost about $4800. The company
behind this feat, WinSun Decoration
Design Engineering Co, has now
produced another first, a full 5 story
residential building and a villa
measuring about 1,100 square meters
in total with external and internal
decorations and it’s completely 3D
printed.

WinSun has been operating for over a
decade now (its their twelfth year in
business) and already they have 98
patents for building materials. They’ve
been experimenting with 3D printing for
quite a while. In 2004 and 2005 they
built a spray nozzle 3D printing system
with automatic material feeding. Then
they printed a wall in 2008.
 Now
they’re building villas and soon they’ll
be replicating skyscrapers. The villa
itself was produced for the Taiwanese
owned real estate firm, Tomson Group.
It was constructed for a total of 1
million yuan ($161000) and ten more
have been pre-ordered.

Scientists Create Ultra Hydrophobic Metal Surface, Makes Water Droplets Bounce

Scientists from the University of
Rochester have managed to create a
metal surface that is so hydrophobic
that water literally bounces off. The
surface is not coated with chemicals like
many surfaces that claim to repel water
are. Instead it is meticulously carved by
using lasers to etch the surface at a
microscopic and nanoscopic scale.
 Video click here
It’s amazing to watch and hard to
believe. The water droplets literally
bounce off as if some force field is
repelling them. The researchers say that
this is different from other surfaces that
are coated with chemicals since the
structure itself repels the water and not
any chemical coating. Also, this ensures
that the hydrophobic effect won’t wear
off.

In comparison to other hydrophobic
surfaces like Teflon that requires an
angle of almost 70 degrees for the
water to slide off, the metal surface
doesn’t require much angle at all for
the water to slide off.

This could be applicable on all sorts of
metal surfaces that require water
proofing like phones, cars, tablets,
computers etc and it could also prevent
icing on the surface of helicopters,
airplanes and space shuttles.
  Youtube video here

One more use for it is to use it to
build 100% efficient water collecting
units in underdeveloped countries or
even latrines. The researchers at
Rochester say that since the surface
repels water, it could also repel moist
solids like feces so if the surfaces of
commodes are etched in this way, no
water maybe required to flush the
waste out.

Watch This Super Hydrophobic Knife Slice A Water Droplet In Half

One of the coolest things I saw on
television as a kid was a samurai
slicing a drop of water as it falls
through the air. It was awesome. But
slicing water is not an easy task, try
carving out a piece, the water parts
momentarily and then reattaches. Well
here comes science with a little help, a
super hydrophobic knife.
watch video here

This video filmed by a team led by
Ryan Yanashima from the department of
chemistry and biochemistry at Arizona
State University shows a drop of water
resting on a Teflon surface being sliced
in to two with a knife. And its quite a
site.

The knife is one of many constructed by
the team at Arizona State in their
endeavour to separate proteins from
the biological fluids they are found in.
The knives were constructed from
polyethylene, a polymer used in plastic
bags, from zinc and copper and were
dipped in a solution of silver nitrate
and a chemical called HDFT for 20
seconds. The result was a super
hydrophobic surface.

You Can Now Sell Your Poop For $13K a Year and Save Lives

OpenBiome (The Microbiome Health
Research Institute) is a center
dedicated to giving wide access to
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation
Procedures (FMTs). An FMT is basically
transplanting someone else’s fecal
matter in to another person’s colon.
While this may seem crazy, it is to
induce the growth of “good” bacteria
for the body to replace the ones that
had been killed off due to antibiotic
exposure. The exposure leads to “bad”
bacteria, particularly Clostridium
Difficile, being formed and causing
infections.

While traditional surgeries to perform
fecal transplants have been invasive
such as nasogastric tubes and
colonoscopies, a new treatment which
involves transplanting capsules of frozen
fecal matter is much less invasive and
just as effective.

OpenBiome pays donors for their fecal
matter and stores it in their labs. Of
course not everybody can donate. There
is a strict medical process that the
poop goes through for the donor to be
marked as legit. People who fit the
age and BMI for the job and who live
near the donor lab at Medford,
Massachusetts undergo stool and blood
testing. After this they are allowed to
donate for up to 60 days, four days per
week. They are then reevaluated.

There are perks for those that donate
five times a week or give the biggest
sample but generally you get $250 per
week or $13000 per year for your
donations.

You Can Now Sell Your Poop For $13K a Year and Save Lives

OpenBiome (The Microbiome Health
Research Institute) is a center
dedicated to giving wide access to
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation
Procedures (FMTs). An FMT is basically
transplanting someone else’s fecal
matter in to another person’s colon.
While this may seem crazy, it is to
induce the growth of “good” bacteria
for the body to replace the ones that
had been killed off due to antibiotic
exposure. The exposure leads to “bad”
bacteria, particularly Clostridium
Difficile, being formed and causing
infections.

While traditional surgeries to perform
fecal transplants have been invasive
such as nasogastric tubes and
colonoscopies, a new treatment which
involves transplanting capsules of frozen
fecal matter is much less invasive and
just as effective.

OpenBiome pays donors for their fecal
matter and stores it in their labs. Of
course not everybody can donate. There
is a strict medical process that the
poop goes through for the donor to be
marked as legit. People who fit the
age and BMI for the job and who live
near the donor lab at Medford,
Massachusetts undergo stool and blood
testing. After this they are allowed to
donate for up to 60 days, four days per
week. They are then reevaluated.

There are perks for those that donate
five times a week or give the biggest
sample but generally you get $250 per
week or $13000 per year for your
donations.

What Happens If You Pour Molten Aluminium Into A Watermelon

Youtuber Backyard Scientist conducted
an interesting experiment recently, one
which produced unexpected results. In
other words, it was the best kind of
experiment a scientist can hope for.

He just wanted to see what would
happen to a watermelon when molten
Aluminium was poured into it. He
anticipated that it would explode,
which is why he wore welding gear,
complete with an apron, gloves and a
welding helmet.

But what happened
completely shocked him.
The experiment was simple, he punched
a hole in a watermelon and heated the
Aluminium in his propane fueled
foundry. When he poured the metal in
to the fruit, it didn’t explode, the
aluminium jumped out of the hole and
fell on the ground (which was lit on
fire).
This was a result of the aluminium
reacting with the water inside the fruit.

After that the coolest thing happened.
When the watermelon was cut open, it
turned out that the aluminium had crept
into it’s crevices and pockets of the
seed chambers and wrapped itself
around the seeds. It had formed a
whole sculpture of the inside of a
watermelon. It smelled horrible though.

Upon repeating the experiment, the
same thing happened and another,
larger sculpture formed.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=fgnsXPnAX8M&feature=youtu.be

Artist Uses Smoke & Glass Bottles To Create Works Of Art

This 24 Carrot Gold Cake Is The Most Expensive-Looking Cake Ever

This gold bar is actually a cake made
out of twenty four baby carrots and
baked to perfection.

Baked by Miss Paige Russell, a creative
designer from Canada. She usually
dabbles in the bizarre or to put it
lightly, the eccentric. Once she built cat
apartments with working elevators,
today she baked a 24 carrot cake.

The cake is made with white and yellow
fondant mixed with each other. It is
decorated with red, yellow and green
food colouring for effect and wrapped
up in a series of edible gold leaf
sheets that give the impression of a
real gold bar.

This Guy Chops Onions Faster Than a Blender [VIDEO]

Feats of superhuman speed and
strength aren’t as rare as we’d think
because there are countless examples
throughout history of people performing
stunts that seem unreal like Houdini,
Bruce Lee or the Great Gama. Here’s
one that doesn’t quite live up to its
predecessors but is incredible just the
same.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=MD-haKFhJNw&feature=youtu.be

This man who is reportedly an Indian,
murders onions faster than any blender
or any human you’ve ever seen. His
technique is simple and effective, chop
chop chop, turn, chop chop chop turn.

This Man Hasn’t Watered This Sealed Bottle For 54 Years and It’s Still Living

David Latimer planted this beauty in
1960 and it’s still living it large (within
it’s own ecosystem). For 54 years since
that fateful Easter Sunday, this 80-year-
old man has kept this lush micro-forest
alive and well in, what would be
scientifically termed as, a closed
system.

He was a young man when Latimer
began this lifelong project. He began
by putting some compost and a quarter
pint of water in a 10 gallon glass
carboy and inserted a spider wort
sprout through some wires.
He sealed the system and except for once in 1972
to add some water, he has never
opened it. All that gets in is sunlight.

The system effectively acts as a self
sufficient organism. The bacteria in the
compost break down the dead plants
and break down the oxygen given off
by the plants, turning it in to carbon
dioxide that the living plants need to
survive. The little garden is an example
of how the earth functions without
anything but sunlight from the outside
world.
“The forest eats itself and lives
forever.” -The Poisonwood Bible

Man Has Night Vision Injected Into His Eyeballs, Thanks To Biohackers

Night vision is something that we can
all agree is cool. The prowling cats of
the wild use it to hunt prey, special
service groups use it to bring down bad
guys and batman uses it to bring down
the joker. But now it maybe accessible
to everybody.

Science for the masses, an organisation
dedicated to the propagation of
science to the general public, has
conducted an experiment whereby they
injected one of their members,
researcher Gabriel Licina, with chlorine
e6, a chemical compound.

Gabriel Licina had 50 microliters of
blackish solution dropped in to his eyes
by a pipette. His eyes were first
flushed clean and propped open with a
speculum (no blinking) and then his
biohacking began.

Gabriel Licina was tested two hours
after the operation and he could
identify objects as large as hands 10
metres away in darkness. In time he
was able to recognize words and
numbers and objects moving against
different backgrounds.

At most he could
recognize objects 50 metres away!
When he was asked to point out
people hidden infront of trees and
shrubs, he pointed at them with a laser
pointer and got it right every time.

Eli Thompson, The Beautiful Baby Without A Nose

Eli Thompson was born on March 4th to
Brandi McGlathery and it was
immediately discovered that he had no
nose.
He didn’t have any breathing
problems and began breathing through
his mouth. Even so he had a
tracheotomy to assist with his
breathing and since then, according to
his mother, he has been a much
happier baby.

The operation however, did leave him
unable to make noise when he cries so
his mother will have to keep a constant
eye on him.

Eli’s condition is called congenital
arhinia and is extremely rare. It only
affects 1 out of a 197 million babies. It
has been reported 43 times since it’s
discovery in 1931.
It has been known
to cause breathing problems but there
have been cases where babies have
made it to adulthood.

Eli’s parents Brandi McGlathery and
Troy have consulted with various people
who have gone through the same
ordeal and lactation experts on how to
feed little Eli and have decided that
until he grows up to decide whether he
wants a nose they aren’t going to
touch him. Brandi says “he’s perfect the
way he is.”