Cow gas-extraction for automobile propulsion project

The cow-centric project, as reported by Ben Schiller for Fast Company, is as much performance art as state-of-the-art technology performance: “Each cow apparently passes enough gas to power a car or a fridge. Imagine the possibilities…. The project from Argentina’s National Institute of Agricultural Technology is only a proof-of-concept at this stage. But it is […]

A possibly-fascinating little taxonomy of little fasteners

If you like to classify things, or see classifications of things that other people took the time to do, you might like the work done by the Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group (HOLG). Their focus is perhaps fascinating, and certainly fastener-centric. The HOLG web site explains: This site contains several years of research in the classification of occlupanids. […]

Tidy Swiss garbage collector up, up in the sky

Just as certain computer scientists and engineers dream of doing better garbage collection in computers (for a dream come true, see Microsoft’s “Fundamentals of Garbage Collection“), scientists and engineers at Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne dream of doing better garbage collection in space. Dead satellites. Detritus from collisions between now-dead satellites and whatever slammed into them. Junk that […]

Project 2000 — A fond look back

Ten years ago, people quivered as the year 2000 approached. Let’s look back, perhaps fondly, at Project AIRhead 2000. Announced in June 1994 (click here to see the announcement), the project celebrated every item, project or concept that had the number 2000 tacked onto its name in giddy anticipation of the coming millennium. Between today […]