The lab in particular is Arhat Abzhanov’s. The scientist is on quite a mission. Without having to plod through excess jargon, he wants to find out which genes among bird embryos are dormant. When he does, he intends to apply the method to curing a birth defect known as HFM or Hemifacial microsomia. As the name suggests, it’s a facial anomaly that affect one out of every 4,500 births.

If you’re wondering how this is connected to the title of the post, keep in mind Dr. Abzhanov is experimenting with birds whose evolutionary ancestors are reptiles. So if he can alter the bird embryos at the specific point where they grow beaks, then he can make the birds revert to their origins. This means the embryos in the egg grow into reptiles. Of course, as noted in his website, ethical standards demand that the eggs are never hatched.

Once this complicated process is accomplished, ... Read more »

Ladies and gentlemen, an American biology student now holds the record for the world’s longest human powered flight by a female. She’s Judy Wexler and in the picture below she’s on Gamera, a carbon fiber four rotor aircraft that’s on track to bag the Sikorsky prize. It’s a holy grail of sorts among helicopter enthusiasts, its criteria being an unattainable goal of 60 seconds of human powered flight. Ms. Wexler has so far only managed less than a fifth of that span with her machine, but she’s determined.

Funny name though. Apparently Gamera  a Japanese monster from a kaiju film–a monster movie. Operating the Gamera is no joke either. Its five pilots need to exert a lot of foot and hand pedaling to power the rotor and getting the frame off the gorund. Ms. Wexler and her team already succeeded with a brief four second hover, they’ve just bested themselves recently with an e ... Read more »

In the vast universe of Star Wars merchandise, there exists a sizable subgenre called Han Solo Carbonite. Another variation is Han Solo Encased in Carbonite. The point is there’s an endless line of both official and fan-made merch depicting dear old Han in his carbonite prison. In our opinion, it’s one of the worst pieces of movie memorabilia, an awful sculpture whose details have gone awry. But it’s hyper-popular in many places.

The product itself isn’t very exciting. Basically a metallic case with a Han Solo Carbonite print on its surface together with the Star Wars logo. Functionality is straightforward, features are zip.

Comes as no surprise then that in Japan, an online retailer is selling a Han Solo Carbonite business card case. Pricing is so far unavailable and there are no other sellers other than Japan. This might hit U.S. or U.K stores soon though. But w ... Read more »

Last December Thrustmaster launched one of the coolest racing wheels in its line up for the PS3 called the T500 RS racing wheel. The one major thing that wheel lacked when it launched was a gear shifter, which the high-end Logitech wheels offer. Thrustmaster has now launched a shifter just for that racing wheel.

The shifter is called the TH8 RS and it has two modes it will operate in. It can be put into a sequential mode where the user can push up and down to shift. It also has a gated shift mode with seven gears and reverse that the driver can use.

The shifter has a clamp on the bottom that will hold it to a desk or table from 1 to 55mm thick. It also has screw-in threads for mounting to racing cockpits. The shifter will be available in October and only works with the PS3 and compatible games.