The Super Strength of POLLI-Bricks – Bricks Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles! These recycled plastic bottle bricks are more affordable and durable than traditional bricks Photo from flickr They’re transparent and translucent. They interlock together to form a honeycomb structure that’s extremely durable. They can be used to build anything from buildings and fences to roofs and walls of light. So what are “they” referring to? They’re called POLLI-Bricks, and they’re a genius example of recycled bottle architecture. Although these plastic bricks may not be as cool as the Heineken beer bottle interlocking bricks from Joe Laur’s One Million Buddhist Beers on the Wall, One Million Buddhist Beers…. blog post, these are a pretty cool close second! Here’s a video of Brian Chee talking about POLLI-Bricks at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: Oh, and did I mention how durable these bricks are? I love the fact that the bricks are solar-powered, and that they retain sunlight during the day to help illuminate them at night!
Digg. The Top 10 Plants for Removing Indoor Toxins. Common indoor plants may provide a valuable weapon in the fight against rising levels of indoor air pollution. NASA scientists are finding them to be surprisingly useful in absorbing potentially harmful gases and cleaning the air inside homes, indoor public spaces and office buildings. The indoor pollutants that affect health are formaldehyde, Volatile Organic Compounds (benzene and trichloroethylene or TCE), airborne biological pollutants, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, pesticides and disinfectants (phenols), and radon.
These pollutants contribute to ‘sick building syndrome’, which causes symptoms ranging from allergies, headaches and fatigue through to nervous-system disorders, cancer and death. Through studies conducted by NASA, scientists have identified 50 houseplants that remove many of the pollutants and gases mentioned above. More information on this study as well as references and details on specific chemicals can be found on Dr. Dr. 1. Also called the “Butterfly Palm”. What Every Man Wants in Bed. Glass lens doorknob gives preview of room beyond. Probably not all doors should offer previews, all the time, but this is undeniably wonderful. As it is, the knob offers bi-directional viewing; I wonder if you could half-silver one side and make it one-way? Johnny Strategy at Spoon & Tomago writes: In conjunction with Design Tide Tokyo, architect Hideyuki Nakayama – a protégé of Toyo Ito – has teamed up with UNION, a manufacturer of door handles and levers, to create a glass globe doorknob.
As you approach the doorknob you catch a glimpse of what appears to be another world, waiting for you to enter and join, but in fact is a reflection of the room on the other side of the door. [via Gizmodo] More: Related. The strange new world of Nanoscience, narrated by Stephen Fry. Jem Melts Rock Using Sunshine - Bang Goes The Theory - Series 3, Episode 5 Preview - BBC One. 11 cheap gifts guaranteed to impress science geeks | DVICE - StumbleUpon. Science comes up with a lot of awesome stuff, and you don't need a Ph.D, a secret lab, or government funding to get your hands on some of the coolest discoveries. We've got a list of 11 mostly affordable gifts that are guaranteed to blow your mind, whether or not you're a science geek. Click on any image to see it enlarged. 1. Aerogel Also known as frozen smoke, Aerogel is the world's lowest density solid, clocking in at 96% air. It's basically just a gel made from silicon, except all the liquid has been taken out and replaced with gas instead.
Aerogel isn't just neat, it's useful. Price: $35 2. Inside these sealed glass balls live shrimp, algae, and bacteria, all swimming around in filtered seawater. EcoSpheres came out of research looking at ways to develop self-contained ecosystems for long duration space travel. Price: $80 3. NASA has been trying to figure out how to get a sample of rock back from Mars for a while now. Price: $70+ 4. Price: $150 5. Price: $110 6. Price: $80 7. Price: $15 8. PilotHandwriting.com - StumbleUpon. - StumbleUpon. Watch light particles travel through a Coke bottle at a trillion frames per second! Ross Nanotechnologys NeverWet superhydrophobic spray.flv. Resource Furniture: Italian-Designed Space Saving Furniture - StumbleUpon.
- StumbleUpon. - StumbleUpon. Air Umbrella by Je Sung Park & Yanko Design. Try Air To Stay Dry Back in May last year I did a roundup of the Most Unconventional Umbrellas seen here on YD. I wish I had stumbled across the Air Umbrella then, because it’s the mother of unconventional designs! Imagine an umbrella with no canopy! The barrier between you and the raindrops is a sheet of steady air that is blown out by this hollow pipe. You can control the length of the stick and the size of the air canopy. Designers: Je Sung Park & Woo Jung Kwon. Crash: A Tale of Two Species - The Benefits of Blue Blood - Horseshoe Crabs | Nature. It fuels the journeys of shorebirds along the Eastern Seaboard and feeds some loggerhead sea turtles and sharks. The horseshoe crab is intricately woven into the web of life. Yet this harmless and primitive sea creature not only plays a key role in nature, it occupies a crucial place in the human world as well.
Over three decades ago, medicine claimed this ancient animal as a new life-saving tool. In 1971 researchers discovered that when they exposed the horseshoe crab to E. coli bacteria, the crab’s blood clotted. The clotting indicated the presence of endotoxins, toxic substances released by E. coli and other gram-negative bacteria that could produce severe symptoms in exposed humans such as fever or hemorrhagic stroke. The simplicity of its immune system is actually what makes the crab’s blood useful to our biomedical industry.
LAL’s endotoxin binding and clotting ability is what makes it so invaluable to our own pharmaceutical industry. Water Powered Jet Pack on Vimeo. Sony Nextep Computer Concept for 2020 by Hiromi Kiriki & Yanko Design - StumbleUpon. In 2020 We Can Wear Sony Computers On Our Wrist Our present need for internet connectivity is so profound that secondary devices like the Nextep Computer are bound to happen. Developed to be worn as a bracelet, this computer concept is constructed out of a flexible OLED touchscreen. Earmarked for the year 2020, features like a holographic projector (for screen), pull-out extra keyboard panels and social networking compatibility, make the concept plausible.
Ten years from now is not too far away, so how many of you think we’d be buying such gadgets? Designer: Hiromi Kiriki. - StumbleUpon. Biomedical Lab Uses Shrinky Dinks Instead of $100K Diagnostic Chips.