True story: up until about five minutes ago, I was toying with the idea of writing a book called, “Why onions make you cry, and other horror stories for children”. It was going to be a masterpiece of childhood fiction about an onion getting revenge on humankind. But now my plans for a best-selling children’s book are nothing more than pipedreams, and it’s all because of some stupid Kiwi scientists.
These scientists have figured out a way of genetically modifying an onion so that you can switch off the enzyme that makes you cry when you cut it open. They hope that they will be able to grow tearless onions and sell them within the next decade.
Considering that onions get their flavour from the same enzyme, I would assume that it would assume that their playing Onion-God (the villain in my story, cooincidentally) would take away the flavour. But they seem to think that the opposite will happen.According to Colin Eady, the senior NZ scientist working on the project: “We anticipate that the health and flavour profiles will actually be enhanced by what we’ve done. What we’re hoping is that we’ll essentially have a lot of the nice, sweet aromas associated with onions without that associated bitter, pungent, tear-producing factor.”
And so my kid’s book idea is ruined. Who’d buy a novel about onions making you cry when, by the time it’s actually written, onions won’t make you cry? It’s a sad day for me…
[Yahoo News via BoingBoing]
Our good friends at Kotaku AU have offered their readers some insightful advice on beating the “You’re not American or Japanese so you have to wait for everything cool” blues. In particular, importing Rock Band, the game that lets even your grandmother think that she can rock out all night, before finding some groupies for some post-show celebrations.
The guide is very basic, and won’t point you exactly where to go for your purchases, it does break down what you’ll need, when you can get it and what systems it will work for. If you can’t wait for that feeling of euphoria you get after belting out a drum solo on easy medium hard, this should be your first point of research.
Leave it to the geniuses at the NIT Physics Lab in Japan to build a cannon that fires ping-pong tennis balls at near-sonic 700 Km/h, annihilating cabbages, Coke bottles and what look like sundry colourfully packaged snack-food items. There’s no dramatic tension here, just the satisfaction of seeing the strong overpower the weak. Want more? Update: Some of you pointed out inconsistencies that, upon review, turned out were the result of me reading one thing and watching another, combining the two into one big idea. My apologies.
AU: So, Microsoft confirmed for me today that the HD DVD add-on is getting dropped to just $129.95 in Australia. That’s cutting $120 off the previous price. Now, everybody knows what my opinions are on the format war, so I’ll just leave it at that, but if anybody is looking for an HD bargain, this is hard to beat…
Effective immediately in the US and Canadia, the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive’s MSRP is $129.99, dropkicked a whole 50 bucks. Is this blood in the water or something? [Major Nelson]
It seems like only Tuesday that we were breaking the news that the Nokia N-Gage gaming platform Beta was available for download for the N81. Now, two days later, Engadget is reporting that the download has been hacked for all NSeries devices, provided they have the internal grunt.
That makes anybody on an N95 open for some cool gaming action. The modified download can be found here. If anybody’s brave enough, I’d love to get your reviews on the experience…
[Finest Fones via Engadget]
A PSP residing in the pocket of a Michigan elementary school student caught fire in the kid’s pants and caused burns to the boy’s inner leg. The boy escaped serious harm, only being treated for minor burns at the hospital. But maybe Chen should start considering what he puts or doesn’t put in his pants. [Click On Detroit via Kotaku]
Last quarter was an all-out TV-maker battle, and you my friends were the territory. DisplaySearch’s results for Q4 ’07 declared the victor in the US LCD category to be Sony for the very first time. Panasonic handily crushed all comers in the smaller US plasma race, and Samsung, with strong #2 finishes in both, ended up remaining the #1 overall TV brand in the country. LG also held its own. But while these Big Four gained ground—often by keeping profit margins slim and exploring cheaper manufacturing—other well-regarded brands like Sharp, Philips and Hitachi fell back. The strongest competition in LCD came from Vizio and Polaroid, but many other brands clashed like barbarians at the gate. DisplaySearch’s charts with market share number are just after the jump, but first answer this simple question:
Just ahead of the big Euro phone show, Mobile World Congress—which our fearless leader is en route to—we’ve got what looks like leaked snaps of a pair of new Sony Ericssons. The smoky number, Alona, stands out from standard SE design, with an LGish outer coat but very Japanese interior. It’s hard to discern thickness, but if it’s blocky as hell, then it would definitely be in the Japanese design camp. A peek under its skirt and at the “Bei Bei” candybar this way. Update: No pics of these, but German site SE World pegs two more chick-codenamed touchscreen phones, Tyra and Josephine.
Okay, so I tried to put myself in this kid’s shoes. I’m looking at a steel hole. Not very exciting! I’d rather go play with a bright, flashing object instead. Apparently, we don’t have the same thought process, ’cause this kid decided to dig deeper. Guess what he found? A whole bunch of OMGI’mStuck. Enter brave firefighters, who have to rip the defenseless washing machine apart with the jaws of life to free the kid. Me? I’d have just gotten a new washing machine on the spot. [WKYC via Fark]
When I imagine surly construction workers like my uncle hauling tools and concrete and porta potties around, trucks loaded up with schnazzy gadgetry is not what I picture. But that’s exactly what Ford (and Microsoft!) see. Their “Work Solutions” concept isn’t even entirely bullshit, either. The feature one worker think dudes would find really useful is Tool Link, an RFID-based tool tracker system—add tags to your tools, and the bed scanner lets you know if something is missing.
