Sikorsky ‘progressing’ with X2 helicopter effort – “The X2 Technology design is intended to showcase a range of possibilities for advancing what a helicopter can do–most notably, how fast it can fly. Sikorsky aims eventually to use its X2 demonstrator to push helicopter cruising speed to 250 knots, or nearly twice as fast as today’s machines, such as its Blackhawk…”

Mind-controlled wheelchair prototype is truly, insanely awesome – “We’ve seen brain-controlled wheelchairs in the past, but we’ve never seen them in action…”

‘Brain Bucket’ Can See Into Your Brain – “It may look like something out of a sci-fi film costume closet, but a new brain scanner, affectionately known as the “Brain Bucket,” is the latest in the high-tech fight against brain disorders….”

To make Facebook advertiser-friendly, its ‘porn cops’ delete risqué content and enforce decorum – “At Facebook, Axten isn’t some fringe employee doing unmentionable work. The 26-year-old Stanford grad is one of some 150 people the young company employs to keep the site clean—out of a total head count of 850…”

True grit – “Sea urchins dig themselves hiding holes in the limestone of the ocean floor using teeth that don’t go blunt. Weizmann Institute scientists have now revealed their secrets, which might give engineers insights into creating ever-sharp tools or mechanical parts…”

Holy cola! Dr Pepper recipe out of the can? – “Poking through antiques stores while traveling through the Texas Panhandle, Bill Waters stumbled across a tattered old ledger book filled with formulas. He bought it for $200, suspecting he could resell it for five times that. Turns out, his inkling about the book’s value was more spot on than he knew. The Tulsa, Okla., man eventually discovered the book came from the Waco, Texas, drugstore where Dr Pepper was invented and includes a recipe titled “D Peppers Pepsin Bitters…”"

Too much Photoshop? Judge for yourself – “Three photographers were told to deliver their RAW-files for closer inspection, when the three judges in January were assembled to select the winners in Picture of The Year in Denmark. This is the first time in the competition’s 35-year history that it has happened. One of the photographers, Klavs Bo Christensen, has accepted to show his RAW-files for the readers of pressefotografforbundet.dk. You can also hear a recording of the conversion between the judges about the photographer’s story…”

5 Super Powers You Can Have Today – “Everybody wants superpowers, from the simple innocence of a child yearning for flight to the sad perversion of the Amish man praying for x-ray vision powerful enough to peep a lady’s calves. We all want to be superhuman, and you can start right now! This is but a sample of some of the currently existing (or soon to be developed) devices that can lend the average man abilities previously relegated to world of comic books…”

Ammo hard to find as gun owners stock up – “Gun shops across the country are reporting a run on ammunition, a phenomenon apparently driven by fear that the Obama administration will increase taxes on bullets or enact new gun-control measures…”

Forest Service closes caves to stop bat fungus – “The U.S. Forest Service is closing thousands of caves and former mines in national forests in 33 states in an effort to control a fungus that has already killed an estimated 500,000 bats…”

Hypermilers Squeeze Ford Fusion Hybrid – “Team member Tom Rolewicz driving in Washington D.C. The team went an amazing 1445.7 miles on a single tank of gas in Alexandria, VA, ending at 5:37am Tuesday April 28, 2009. The car had been running for 69 hours continuously…”

White Blood Cells Can Sprout ‘Legs’ And Move Like Millipedes – “How do white blood cells – immune system ‘soldiers’ – get to the site of infection or injury? To do so, they must crawl swiftly along the lining of the blood vessel – gripping it tightly to avoid being swept away in the blood flow – all the while searching for temporary ‘road signs’ made of special adhesion molecules that let them know where to cross the blood vessel barrier so they can get to the damaged tissue…”

Rutgers Uses Robot Sub to Interest Students in Marine Sciences – “Scarlet is a submersible glider, an unmanned underwater robot shaped something like a miniature jetliner, that was launched from Tuckerton, N.J., in Ocean County, last Monday by students and faculty members in Rutgers’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. If all goes according to plan, the glider will reach Spain in about nine months, collecting information about the Atlantic Ocean along the way…”

Chinese pensioner designs stair-climbing chair – “Li Rongbiao had been looking forward to a quiet retirement. But after he left his job aged 65 a few years ago, his wife had an accident…”

Dolphins stay alert after five straight days of round-the-clock vigilance – “Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchMost of us start to tire after about half a day without any sleep. Staying awake for five in a row would be extremely difficult and even if you could manage it, you’d be a physical and mental wreck by the end. But not all animals suffer from the same problem. A dolphin can stay awake and alert for at least 5 days straight, chaining together all-nighters without any noticeable health problems or loss of mental agility…”

When advanced users outsmart themselves: The device removal notification icon – “When I tell this story to other advanced users, I often get the same reaction: “What? You can left-click on that thing and it does something different from right clicking? Dude, why didn’t anybody tell me this? I’ve been doing it the hard way all this time!” “

Eels in crisis after 95% decline in last 25 years – “But the mystery of the vanishing eels is troubling fisheries officials, conservationists and fishermen who for generations have hunted the curious animal…”

The Veil Is Lifted From Wolfram Alpha – “In a talk at Harvard Law School, Stephen Wolfram, a well-known mathematician, scientist and entrepreneur, gave a demonstration of his soon-to-be released Web service which promises to answer all sorts of questions. The service, called Wolfram Alpha, had technology bloggers abuzz that a rival to Google was about to hit the Web…”

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