Last week, True Activist published a story about a 15 year old who invented a shoe insole that creates electricity while you walk. His device was a submission for this year’s “Google Science Fair” which features a number of brilliant inventions, many of which were created by teenagers and young children.Another finalist in this year’s... Continue Reading →

Robots, software, and automatons of any sort don't need to be perfect to steal jobs from flesh-and-blood humans — they only need to be better than them.So goes the conceit of the above video, "Humans Need Not Apply."YouTube user CGPGrey makes interesting mini-documentaries, and the latest one addresses a topic we've touched on a number of... Continue Reading →

The first ever robot flash mob has assembled at Harvard University, where a thousand autonomous bots have arranged themselves into vast, complex shapes."Form a sea star shape," directs a computer scientist, sending the command to 1,024 little robots simultaneously via an infrared light. The robots begin to blink at one another and then gradually arrange... Continue Reading →

The Antarctic midge, Belgica antarctica, is the continent’s only native insect... and it’s tough. The extremophile survives in the most intense landscape: freezing temperatures, desiccation, high salt concentrations, strong winds, and severe UV exposure. And it does all that with a surprisingly compact genome -- likely an adaptation to life in extreme environments, according to... Continue Reading →

A group of US scientists have managed to create a three-dimensional brain-like tissue featuring structural similarities to rat brain. Researchers hope that the new tissue could be used in the development of new treatments for brain dysfunctions.The brain-like tissue was bioengineered at the Tissue Engineering Resource Center at Tufts University in Boston. Professor David Kaplan... Continue Reading →

In this short animation, psychologist Tim Kasser discusses how America's culture of consumerism undermines our well-being. When people buy into the ever-present marketing messages that "the good life" is "the goods life," they not only use up Earth's limited resources, but they are less happy and less inclined toward helping others.The animation both lays out... Continue Reading →

They can control the movement of a floating ping-pong ball just by making a specific pattern of waves.By changing the pattern, they moved the ball around the tank in various ways, including pulling it closer like the famous beam from science fiction.The findings, published in the journal Nature Physics, have the potential to help contain... Continue Reading →

The NYPD has sent out an internal memo that tells officers they aren’t allowed to take action to stop someone from photographing or filming them. This comes a whopping two years after Washington DC’s police chief sent out an almost identical memo.According to the New York Daily News, the chief of department’s office sent out... Continue Reading →

The Pratt Institute for Design is known for its phenomenal furniture design students as well as architects, artists, graphic designers, but for trash can designers? Yes, that’s right, recent graduate Nicole Howell turned her ‘Toss With Care’ trash can design thesis project into a full on mission to better understand homelessness in New York City,... Continue Reading →

We’ve seen 3D printed building materials before, but a team at Cornell has developed a unique ceramic brick that snaps together like legos! The bricks can be used to create incredibly complex structures using a single material, and the system completely eliminates construction waste.The lightweight interlocking PolyBricks were developed by the Sabin Design Lab in... Continue Reading →