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How much do I like this home metal bar, this beautiful sculpture/unidentified drinking object created by architect Zaha Hadid for London's Home House? Let me count the ways:
As the Constellation program (kind of) goes forward, Nasa is asking itself some really weird questions that may affect the life of the astronauts as they advance towards their three-year mission to Mars. One of them has been commissioned to Steven Pearce, chemist and managing director of fragrance manufacturing company Omega Ingredients: What is life in the Orion spacecraft going to smell like?
As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the Japan Iron and Steel Federation got ironsmithing genius Kogoro Kurata to display his insane 1:1 scale model of the Scopedog mecha from the 80s anime series VOTOMS. Weighing in at two tons and standing a full four meters tall, it dwarfed everything else at the exhibition. The cast iron structure was actually finished in 2005 and has been on display before at other Japanese conventions, but it still thrills every time it rears its mechanical head. Look at the detail on this thing!
Gadgets are using up the earth's elements. Like, the basic elements that make up all chemical matter according Armin Reller, a materials chemist at Germany's University of Augsburg. Gallium is apparently critical for making LCDs. We'll be out of it in a few years. Hafnium (part of Intel's breakthrough with Penryn) will be gone by 2017 says Dr. Reller. We're also blowing through our supplies of zinc and copper, even though we have a shitload of it. Obviously, it would seriously cramp our gadget style, since copper is in like, everything. Oh yeah, and an element going extinct might not be good for the environment. [Asimovs via Valleywag]
Wearing Bluetooth headsets is always a risky fashion statement, but it may be that the slenderness of Bluetrek's Metal headset reduces the fashion-geek effect. It looks even skinnier than Apple's offering, being a scant 4mm deep, and weighing a mere 4.5 grams. Nevertheless, the skinny earbud-like device will give you five hours talk and seven days of standby. It'll be available in Europe at first, from this month for around US$60 for black and silver, US$76 for silver steel colour. [Headset gazette via Mobile burn]
The European Space Agency is looking into manufacturing intermetallic materials in zero gravity space to cut the weight of jet engines in half and increase fuel efficiency. Intermetallic materials are different than alloys in that they are combined at the molecular level, as opposed to merely melting down metals and creating a homogeneous mix. Scientists want to manufacture Titanium Aluminide up in space because on earth, the difference in the metals' weight prevents the allow from diffusing correctly. The ESA currently plans to go up to the International Space Station to conduct tests on the manufacturing process. [BBC via io9 via DViCE]
Hammerite's new Metalmaster system speeds up the whole process of painting metal stuff by spraying all sides of an object at the same time. You just clip the gun to the object with a wire, and electrostatic charging means that the thing you're painting actually attracts the paint particles. This means no brush marks, as well as an even, all-over coat. It only works for metal things, and you need to use specially formulated paint, but it sounds so cool that I want to try it out, and I don't even have anything to paint! Available soon in the UK, for around US$80 for the gun and US$30 for a 750ml paint tin.
AU: I remember seeing this on Beyond 2000 (or something similar) years ago it's good to see that it's now actually a consumer product.[Hammerite, T3 —thanks, Jez.]
Made in Italy by Parafernalia, the Falter 2D is a flat piece of metal that converts, in just four easy steps, into a pen but also a ruler, and a envelope opener, and a device to kill people a la Calo killing Don Licio Lucchesi in the Godfather III. How-to video after the jump.
Tucked into a dark and tiny corner of the PMA showfloor is a revolution made by a small Korean company called Wooyoun: metal photographs that last for 20,000 years. These images depicting the Democratic US presidential frontrunners (and no Republicans) were chemically etched in a patented, print-like process—probably with stuff that gives improperly masked technicians some horribly debilitating ailment. They'll last up to 1,000 years under the hot unforgiving sun. Hear that? Screw biodegradability. Put another way, that Hillary card you see in the gallery will outlast her reign by at least 15,000 years.
The office can be a dangerous place, full of danger and boredom. Thankfully ThinkGeek have come to the rescue with some lightweight and affordable chain mail. At only 20 pounds, this aluminum armour is light enough to wear all day, and comes in both large and medium sizes. It should fend off light blows and any attention from the opposite sex.
