It’s A Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s A… Hovercraft?!

With all this talk of ground-effect craft on WU recently, perhaps you feel like owning one, and not just a rusting cold-war relic either. Well now you can as self-taught New Zealand mechanic Rudy Heeman has decided to sell the pride and joy it took him 10 years to build, a flying hovercraft.

At low speeds the vehicle behaves much as any hovercraft would, covering most surfaces with the usual ease, but over 70 km/h the craft's detachable lightweight wings kick in and it takes to the air. But despite being surprisingly nimble in flight, Heeman's invention, called the "WIG", doesn't require a pilot's license to fly (in New Zealand at least) since like all hovercraft it is classed as a marine vehicle. Video in the link (Sky News).

A Man with Vision

This is definitely one of those "why hasn't someone thought of this before?" type inventions. Back in March of 1985, Josh Silver, a physics professor at Oxford University, had a conversation with a colleague about optical lenses and the sort of specialized equipment needed to adjust them. And in that moment, he had an idea that will affect the lives of billions - a pair of glasses that can be almost instantly adjusted by the person wearing them. No visits to the eye-doctor. No money spent. The concept relies on the principle that the fatter a lens is, the more powerful it becomes. (Remember the kid in fourth-grade who had glasses thick enough to be from the bottom of a coke bottle?) These glasses consist of hollow plastic lenses, inside which are two clear sacs filled with fluid. Using a small syringe, the person wearing the glasses can add or remove fluid, thus changing the power of the lens. Silver's team has already started to distribute the spectacles. You can read more about these amazing glasses, and the man behind them, here.

The World’s Smallest Snowman

The National Physical Laboratory has been around since the early 1900s and is famous for a number of its creations, such as the first working atomic clock. But never let it be said that it's all work and no play in the lab. Just in time for Christmas, the NPL, located in Middlesex, England, has created the world's smallest snowman. The snowman is not visible to the naked eye, being only one-fifth the width of a human hair. It was created with two tin beads used to calibrate electron microscope astigmatism. The nose is ion beam deposited platinum and the rest of the face was milled using a focused ion beam. All that scientific mumbo-jumbo aside, this tiny snowman is adorable!

I’ll Huff And I’ll Puff…

From the BBC children's science show "Bang Goes The Theory...", engineer Jem Stansfield builds himself a giant vortex cannon, and tries to knock down buildings made of straw, wood and bricks...



Impressive, though I'm sure the "Big Bad Wolf" would not have had much of a problem if the third little pig had likewise left out the mortar. Mind you, one of these is just what I need to keep the neighborhood cats out of my garden!

World’s Smallest Gun

Well, the Swiss have done it and it's been verified by Guinness World Records. The world's smallest gun measures no more then 5.5 cm long and fires 2.34 mm caliber ammunition. It's a double action revolver that functions just like it's bigger siblings. Unfortunately for you American gun collectors out there the SwissMiniGun is not available in the U.S. and cannot be imported, but it's fun to look at. For those of you who may be able to purchase one, they are available in either steel or gold and can apparently be tricked out with diamonds. SwissMiniGun

Flesh Eating Robots

A couple of designers, James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau, from the UK have created five robots that have a taste for meat. The "robotic furniture" is designed to look cool and to catch flies and mice. Once caught, the vermin are digested and turned into energy to power the machines. NewScientist

Great News For The Environmentally Unconscious

I know you're sitting there thinking "what can we do to make it more energy efficient to drive our cars rather than riding our bikes or walking." You're thinking that because you're lazy and don't want to give up the luxury of automated transportation. Oh. You weren't thinking that? That was just me? Figures. But there's some good news for me. Britain's Environmental Transport Association may have come up with a solution. Piezoelectric crystals. The idea is to embed a stretch of highway with the crystals, then each car that drives over a crystal contributes a tiny bit of energy, such that a single kilometer of roadway could generate 400-kilowatts of energy. That energy could then be collected, stored and used for any number of functions. But will it work? Absolutely. A Sainsbury's supermarket in Gloucester, UK has already put it into use, powering their checkout lanes.

Does it Only Do Beans?

Heinz (of ketchup fame) recently introduced the Beanzawave, a tiny microwave that is powered by a computers USB port and would be the world's smallest microwave (7.4 inches tall x 6.2 inches wide x 5.9 deep). Only a prototype at the moment, the Beanzawave is a major breakthrough for its use of cell phone radio frequencies to cook your food in under a minute. If you don't like to lug a laptop around with you when you leave your house, but still have the need to microwave your food wherever you go there is an option to use a battery. When/If Heinz decides to go ahead and manufacture this microwave it'll cost about $160 and you'll never have to leave your computer every again. Daily Mail

Transformers Are Real! … Well, Sort Of

A few years ago, a neighbor of my parents, a man who owned a construction company, parked a backhoe in his driveway. The surrounding neighbors nearly had a riot over how the machine was lowering the value of their property just by being there. So you can imagine how this guy's neighbors might feel. Carlos Owens of Wasilla, Alaska, a former Army mechanic, had a dream. His dream was to create a giant metal robot that could mirror the movements of its human pilot. Now the "mecha", as he calls it, has become a reality. It has taken him four years and cost approximately $25,000, but just think of all the fun you could have with one of these.

Inventions of Buckminster Fuller, Part 4: The Dymaxion Bathroom

This was the finishing touch to Fuller's Dymaxion House.
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