Like an eternal tattoo, if you plan on getting yourself turned into a record when you die you had best be careful about what track you want to be remembered by — will it be a one-hit wonder or a timeless classic?

Morbid or amazing depending on your point of view, Ask Studio is an offering of British company Andvinyl that involves pressing your cremains into a series of musical discs.

Each record has 24 minutes of audio (12 per side) and a single person’s cremated remains can be turned into up to 30 such discs. You can even pick which body parts become which disc, apparently (though how they separate those out in the cremation process is probably up to you).

Music is not the only option, either — the user supplies the sound, so it can be a song or simply a message to a family member, spouse, friend or other loved one. Labels feature the name, birth and death dates of the deceased. Album artwork can also be customized.

You can even have them shipped to vinyl stores for resale if you’re into that sort of thing (and if the participating shop is game to sell human remains). It’s not cheap (a few thousand dollars) but neither is burial! Pets welcome as well (Pet Cemetery soundtrack, perhaps?).

The post Spin Me Right Round: Company Presses Cremated Ashes into Playable Vinyl Records first appeared on Gajitz.

We all know that drones can safely go where humans cannot, but one other big upside is their potential to (sometimes literally) pave the way for people to follow, by doing things like weaving together physical bridges that can support a person’s weight.

As this video from the RTH Zurich Flying Machine Arena shows, a set of quadcopters can be programmed to braid and knot a sturdy rope bridge in midair. The effect is surprisingly graceful, each drone managing to avoid the other as they swoop back and forth in the room. The low strength-to-weight ratio of the materials deployed makes it possible for lightweight drones to construct surprisingly capable structures.

Motion-capture devices were used to map the space, taking positional measurements around which the drones could then operate. Nothing was left to human hands – even the tie-offs and other connections were completed automatically by drone. While scaffolding was provided in this case, there is no fundamental reason why the same drones could not work with existing supports in nature like rocks or trees. The open question: what will we call the works and processes of this new breed of robotic builders? Droneconstruction sounds a little too much like deconcstruction, but options are still open.

The post Dronestruction: Watch Drones Build a Working Rope Bridge first appeared on Gajitz.

For a long time, we’ve believed that the human appendix was more or less good for nothing. Darwin postulated that the appendix was a remnant of evolution that was no longer needed. But for the first time, researchers are actually taking a close look at the appendix and its function. And they’ve come to believe that it is, after all, good for something: it may help to restock the stomach with good bacteria after an illness, like a bout of diarrhea.

(image via: ashe-villain)

Scientists and researchers from Duke University Medical Center, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University collaborated on the study, which concluded that not only is the appendix not useless – it’s also been around far longer than anyone previously thought. Rather than being a leftover from some previous configuration of the human digestive system, the study found that the appendix has evolved at least twice and is present in many other animals. When Darwin said that the appendix had no use, he simply didn’t have all of the information that we have now; otherwise he would have seen how prevalent the appendix is in the animal kingdom. Given our improved health care and sanitation standards, however, the appendix may not have a good use these days since our immune system no longer has to deal with many challenges.

The post Appendicitis? Human Appendix Maybe Not Useless After All first appeared on Gajitz.

If it can cure color blindness in monkeys, how long will it be before similar cell injections to likewise help humans who cannot see in conventional color ranges? Though not considered fully ready for human testing, this therapy that works on monkey test subjects nonetheless suggests that researchers are headed in the right direction and human trials are hopefully not far in the future.

While no one can say for certain whether or not this technique is the cure for seeing red and green in those people currently unable to, some scientists are already claiming – on the basis of these monkey trials – that it could and should be able to assist the millions of people in the United States alone who have genetic disorders affecting their ability to perceive colors.

Of course, being color blind does not kill, nor does it significantly impact most of the everyday abilities of those individuals who function fine with some form of color blindness. Nonetheless, many who suffer  from this limiting visual impairment wish they could appreciate the full range of sunsets and otherwise differentiate between the same colors in works of art and everyday objects as other individuals not afflicted.

The post Monkey See? Simple Injection Can Cure Color Blindness first appeared on Gajitz.