Lisa Katayama

Exos arm brace is waterproof, radiolucent, easy to remove, and looks cool

The Exos arm brace is a new waterproof, radiolucent fracture brace that comes in some really cool colors and is adjustable by Boa lacing. All this basically means that you can now swim, shower, and get x-rays without having to remove the brace &mdash and when you do need to take it off, you just have to release the dial to loosen. Comes in sizes small, medium, and large. Neat!

Product page [Exos Medical]

Rob Beschizza

$25 Incubator

Xeni spots an incubator that will save the lives of prematurely-born infants in the developing world. It costs $25: "They realized they didn't need to design a cheaper incubator. They just needed a way to keep babies warm."

Lisa Katayama

Map shows Golden Gate Bridge marked by suicides

This depressing but fascinating map shows the Golden Gate Bridge marked by the number of suicides at each of the 128 light poles that span it.

[via StrangeMaps]

Lisa Katayama

Mysterious Japanese electronic ion toothbrush

While cleaning out my bathroom cabinet earlier this week, I found this mysterious Japanese "Densi POWER" electronic ion toothbrush. It claims to emit 30 microamps of electric currents throughout the body, which somehow prevents cavities. The currents are only activated when it's used with toothpaste. I would stay away from it, but it has the official seal of approval from the Japanese Association of Preventive Medicine for Adult Disease on it. If anybody has any further information on this toothbrush &mdash how it works, or how it got in my bathroom cabinet, even &mdash please leave a comment.

Joel Johnson

Albert Hofmann's letter to Steve Jobs

Ryan Grim hangs a short overview of psychedelic use among computing luminaries around a letter from LSD-discoverer Albert Hofmann's letter to Steve Jobs, asking for the Apple founder's support of Dr. Peter Gasser's MAPS study project:

Hello from Albert Hofmann. I understand from media accounts that you feel LSD helped you creatively in your development of Apple computers and your personal spiritual quest. I'm interested in learning more about how LSD was useful to you.

Image: Dylan Roscover

Steven Leckart

Fighting Carpal Tunnel w/Data, Pegboard

Doctors may soon use devices like this to obtain precise measurements of hand muscle strength. Developed by bioengineering students at Rice University, the unit promises to present docs with actual hard data that will lead to swifter diagnoses, especially carpal tunnel syndrome. (Many health practitioners currently opt for the more subjective, manual tests like when a doc grabs your hand and asks you to push back.)

Known as PRIME (Peg Restrained Intrinsic Muscle Evaluator), the unit has just has three main components: "pegboard restraint, a force transducer enclosure and a PDA custom-programmed to capture measurements."

Here's how it works, per Rice:

In a five-minute test, a doctor uses pegs to isolate a patient's individual fingers. "You wouldn't think it works as well as it does, but once you are pegged in, you can't move anything but the finger we want you to," Miller said. A loop is fitted around the finger, and when the patient moves it, the amount of force generated is measured. "PRIME gets the peak force," Xu said. "Then the doctor can create a patient-specific file with all your information, time-stamped, and record every single measurement.".

[via MedGadget]

Rob Beschizza

Good lord, they still make the Flowbee

"Flowbee may be used on pets with a Pet attachment. Please note when cutting your pets coat down to 1/2" inch it is essential to use the pet attachment. This will keep the pet's skin in place."

Steven Leckart

Review: Platypus CleanStream Gravity Filter

"Oh man, you just turned our campsite into an ER!"

The CleanStream is a gravity filtration system that resembles an IV bag. Consisting of two Platypus bladders, two hoses, and one 0.2-micron-thick hollow fiber filter (w/a cartridge that's good for ~1500L), this $90 system can handle bacteria, protozoa, viruses and particulate &mdash i.e. the gunky yellow stuff that came out of the spigot at our campsite (see below).

The CleanStream is straightforward to use. After attaching the hoses to either end of the filter, you fill the "dirty" bag from your stream, spigot or other source (avoid shallow, still puddles!), and hang up the dirty bag, leaving the "clean" bag on the ground or somewhere below the dirty one. Instantly, gravity pulls the H2O down through the filter and into the "clean" bag. There's also a clip on the hose that lets you pause the filtering if, say, you need only a smaller quantity of water in one minute vs. three.

I will admit the spigot where we were camped was unlikely to have any contaminants, bacteria, etc. However, there's something about drinking yellow water that doesn't sit too well with me. Thus, we double-filtered our water, which dramatically reduced the yellow:

[Note: to avoid mixing up the bags during use, write "dirty" or "X" on the dirty bag with a Sharpie.]

Gravity filters aren't new, but this was my first time trying one out*. Reason being the $90 price tag makes it somewhat of a luxury item, imho. When I backpacked Hawaii for 2 months in college all I used were $7 for iodine tablets. I drank from streams and waterfalls and never got sick, but the taste wasn't terrific and using tablets required way too much time: drop in tablets, wait 30 minutes, and then another 30 minutes if you also use the taste-neutralizing tablets (which I did not).

At the time, though, the tablets were way more preferable to filtering with a hand-pump. After hiking 12 miles of rocky coastline, the last thing you want to do is expend energy just for a sip of fresh water. If you're car camping (which I was recently), you're likely partial to gear that will make the experience as cush and convenient as possible.

So for $90, you can have potable water in less than 3 minutes, literally, by doing nothing. Or you could spend $7 to have potable water in 30 minutes. Or you can spend somewhere in between on a hand-pump filter and get some added exercise. Your call.

*It's worth noting there are other systems some packers have been using in conjunction with Platypus bladders, including the Sawyer and Aquamira Frontier Pro. I have no personal experience with either.

Steven Leckart

Do Your CPR Training via iPhone [Just Don't Practice on Me]

iCPR Lite is a new, $0.99 app for the iPhone that provides visuals and prompts to help you learn basic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.

But is it better than the free CPR*Choking app released last month?

If you have experience with either and/or know CPR and can provide some insight, please drop some knowledge in the comments or email me: steven AT boingboing DOT net.

[via Medgadget]

Joel Johnson

Video: Thank god, it's the Comfort Wipe

Actually, Comfort Wipe, I think living in bodies that must use the bathroom at all is archiac. Can you fix that?

And sorry, chubby dude, I do not hate on the portly types, but I really don't think there's any "advantages" to being overweight. Unless you don't like to wipe your own ass in the first place.

Thank god they weren't suggest what I first thought they were suggesting, which was to also use it as a shower brush. [via The Awl]

Lisa Katayama

Don't jump off the Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is frequently cited as the #1 suicide spot in the world. Someone jumps about every other week. It's supposedly one of the surest ways to die, although some &mdash like one guy interviewed in the super depressing documentary The Bridge &mdash do actually survive the fall.

A Chronicle reporter described the jump as follows:

The body goes from roughly 75 to 80 mph to nearly zero in a nanosecond. The physics of inertia being what they are, internal organs tend to keep going. The force of impact causes them to tear loose. Autopsy reports typically indicate that the jumpers have lacerated aortas, livers, spleens and hearts. Ribs are often broken, and the impact shoves them into the heart or lungs. Jumpers have broken sternums, clavicles, pelvises and necks. Skull fractures are common.

The Golden Gate Bridge was built in 1937 by Joseph Strauss, and the reason the bridge is so easy to jump from is because Strauss was just five feet tall and he wanted to be able to look out on the bay, too. So he changed the rail height from the originally intended five and a half feet to four feet. 10 weeks after completion, a WW1 veteran strolled onto the bridge, climbed over the rail, and took the first plunge.

The good news is that the Golden Gate Bridge is finally getting a barrier. After years of discussion and no action, a committee called the Golden Gate Bridge Physical Suicide Deterrent System Project agreed on a steel safety net 20 feet below the walkway, a yet-to-be-funded project that will cost three years and $50 million. (The lag was due to bureaucrats bickering about how to make one without ruining the bridge's aesthetic for years. Ultimately, they decided to paint the barrier's horizontal mesh wiring orange.) It's about time &mdash the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower already have suicide barriers in place, and Aokigahara forest in Japan, reportedly the #2 suicide hot spot of the world, has signs reminding people that their life is a precious gift from their parents and begging them to reconsider.

I hope this new initiative will go through, and that it will reduce the number of suicides in San Francisco.

Image by Dawn Endico via Flickr

Joel Johnson

"Kurzweil will probably die"

John Markoff on artificial intelligence and the Singularity (It's back! Run for $yourlives):

Nevertheless, this generation of humans, at least, is perhaps unlikely to need to rush to the barricades. The artificial-intelligence industry has advanced in fits and starts over the past half-century, since the term "artificial intelligence" was coined by the Stanford University computer scientist John McCarthy in 1956. In 1964, when Mr. McCarthy established the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the researchers informed their Pentagon backers that the construction of an artificially intelligent machine would take about a decade. Two decades later, in 1984, that original optimism hit a rough patch, leading to the collapse of a crop of A.I. start-up companies in Silicon Valley, a time known as "the A.I. winter."

Joel Johnson

Braun bodycruZer is another demammalling device

Watch out BodyGroom, there's a new scrotum shaver in town. The Braun bodycruZer weds a hair trimmer to a Gillette Fusion razor, letting you drag both separately or in tandem to make your body as sleek and hairless as a sea lion in a zentai suit.

They're available in your local drug store and such for around $70.

(Dieter Rams must be turning over in his sleek aluminum grave. Someone let him out and wheel him back over to Braun, because he's still alive and they clearly need the help.)

Lisa Katayama

Coffee in a can from a vending machine is big (and manly) in Japan

When I was a teenager in Tokyo, I used to drink coffee all the time &mdash from a can, from a vending machine, often at the train station on my way home from school. In went a 100 yen coin, and out came a piping hot 250 ml can of delicious brew, pre-mixed with cream and sugar. Coffee in a can is everywhere in Japan, and when I moved to the US, I wondered why it's not as prevalent here. Why? It's so much more convenient and cheaper than searching for a Starbucks.

The Japanese like to compartmentalize everything--recent years have spawned everything from instant noodles to beef and potatoes served in cans out of vending machines. Canned coffee is said to have originated in Japan in the late 1950s, but it really took off around 1973, when beverage company Pocca invented the Hot/Cold vending machine. After that, everyone from Coca Cola to beer manufacturers like Asahi and Suntory came out with their own versions of coffee in a can. The UCC version, pictured here, has been around since last sixties, and you can still find it in vending machines. Amazing, right? Today, you can get almost any variation of coffee in a can in Japan &mdash just like how you can go crazy on options at Starbucks.

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Rob Beschizza

Robot Therapy Seal Pups

Adorable! "World's Most Therapeutic Robot, certified by Guinness World Records," is exactly how they'll get us. Video after the jump.

Product Page [Parobots via inhabitots and BotJunkie]

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Rob Beschizza

Doctor Driller saves boy's life

A doctor in Australia drilled into a boy's skull with a power drill, draining it of blood clots that would otherwise have killed him. From the BBC:

Dr Rob Carson performed the procedure on Nicholas Rossi, 13, after the boy fell off his bike and hit his head. The doctor had never attempted the surgery before, and had to be talked through the operation by a Melbourne neurosurgeon. ... The small hospital had no special tools, so the team had to use a household drill.

I wonder what model it was.

Photo: fox.out22 / Игорь Сергеев

Joel Johnson

Tiny USB robot head screams when you lean too close to your monitor

While it may look like a friendly robot that would be taken in by Hume Cronen and Jessica Tandy, this little USB device is a "Posture Correcting Alert Device" that sends off a chime and a flashing LED when you get closer than you should be to the screen. That won't get annoying at all! (You can set the preferred distance, though.)

$22 will get you one from UXSight.com, although you'd be better off just not ever leaning forward in your chair. [via GadgetsAlerts]

Joel Johnson

Jam the Sneezer Beam in your nose to fight allergies

The "Sneezer Beam" is a two-pronged light-emitting device that, when jammed up your nose to irradiate your nostrils, claims to "inhibit the cells in your nose that release histamine" to cure hay fever and other allergies. It's £40 from Gizoo.

Searching in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the "official publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology" for "light therapy" does not bring up any results, although Gizoo's write-up says that positive results from a clinical trial of the device were published there. (That doesn't mean they weren't, or even that the device doesn't work, but simply that I can't find it.) [via Coolest-Gadgets]

Steven Leckart

Sonogram art & remixes for new/expectant/sentimental moms

Skip cookware, a new vacuum cleaner, or pink electrical devices this Mother's Day. The gift of life is plenty. What a mom doesn't necessarily need, but will cherish forever is artwork based on her baby's first portrait, and even heartbeat.

Companies like Baby Heart Art will transpose the data points from a sonogram onto paper, then place those BPM's within an acid-free mat and 11"x14" frame -- all for $125 (or less if you skip the mat or frame). All you have to do is email a file, select a color combination (I like green/blue), and decide which data you want graphed: the more chaotic pulsed Doppler pattern or condensed M Mode pattern (tough call).

Too pricey?

Try a simple ultrasound art-y photo tweak. Sites like iCanvasArt charge $35 (?) to do some Photoshoppery to make your baby's first pic look like a Warhol (sorta). No idea why you'd use one of these sites, unless you are strapped for time, or for whatever reason, are completely incapable of stumbling your way through consumer-oriented editing programs like iPhoto or Picnik.

Too boring?

Go for SonoArt. They'll remix your sonogram in some amazingly odd ways. The "Robot" version of your baby might seem strange, but who doesn't think of his/her baby as a "Future Leader"?

Warning: it is not advisable to conduct non-medical sonograms purely for "keepsake" purposes.

[top image via Flickr; note: Baby Heart Art sample is not based on top sonogram]

Steven Leckart

Review: Anti Monkey Butt Powder [verdict: works]

Anti Monkey Butt Powder has three ingredients: talc, calamine powder and "fragrance" (a bit like a flower-scented candle). Runners put it between their cheeks and around all their personal bits and pieces to prevent chafing and soak up sweat.

My experience: Very smooth, soft, powdery, smells good, feels great, no rashes or chafing. Also, it makes a hilarious mess if you're not careful. Like eating a jelly donut, you can't go hog wild, especially if you wear black or dark colors.

How to use: Remove shorts completely. Dump small amount of powder in palm. Rub around vigorously but, you know, gently. Replace shorts slowly. Wash hands.

Warning: Resist the temptation to powder yourself when not exercising. Start indulging in this all the time, and you might as well wear a diaper.

In case you're not sold on the merits of this AMBP. Their ads feature a chimp:

Steven Leckart

The Joggers: good tunes for good runs

There is nothing remotely gadget-y or technologically-advanced about this five piece band from Portland, OR.

But their name is The Joggers, and I thoroughly enjoy running to them.

[image via ClipartHeaven via Chubby Artist]

Steven Leckart

Review: going on beer runs w/the GoWear Fit

Running is for criminals. I've always detested it. It's not that I can't take exercise or sweating (I love biking, hiking). I loathe the constant exertion of jogging, the pounding of the feet, and the nagging suspicion I'm always doing it wrong. In college, I split my time between the beach and treadmills, and preferred the latter, even though running inside hurts my soul. In retrospect, I assumed forcing a machine to do the pacing was the appeal. Lazy dude, unforgiving machine. Turns out I was wrong. It wasn't until I strapped on the GoWear Fit -- an arm/wristband system that tabulates distance (in steps) and calories burned over time -- that it all clicked. It's not the treadmill's pacing I was after. It's the feedback. The data. All that time I was running blind. No wonder I hated it. After the jump, hear how I learned to stop worrying and sort of, actually, kind of, almost love the run.

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Joel Johnson

Earth Angel, a hand-cranked vibrator

British retailer LoveHoney is selling the "Earth Angel", a battery-free wind-up vibrator. Four minutes of cranking will bring you 30 minutes of vibrating.

It's a gasp-inducing £65, though, which is a lot of batteries. [via Gizmodo]

Steven Leckart

Maybe Shoeless Joe was onto something?

Could running barefoot be better for your feet? Are high-end running shoes just phooey? The Daily Mail thinks so: "Despite all their marketing suggestions to the contrary, no manufacturer has ever invented a shoe that is any help at all in injury prevention."

Interviews with Olympic physical therapists and Harvard anthropology professors suggest that's the case:

"A lot of foot and knee injuries currently plaguing us are caused by people running with shoes that actually make our feet weak, cause us to over-pronate (ankle rotation) and give us knee problems... Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet and had a much lower incidence of knee injuries."

..."When it comes to sensing the softest caress or tiniest grain of sand, your toes are as finely wired as your lips and fingertips. It's these nerve endings that tell your foot how to react to the changing ground beneath, not a strip of rubber.

To help prove this point, Dr Steven Robbins and Dr Edward Waked of McGill University, Montreal, performed a series of lengthy tests on gymnasts. They found that the thicker the landing mat, the harder the gymnasts landed. Instinctively, the gymnasts were searching for stability. When they sensed a soft surface underfoot, they slapped down hard to ensure balance. Runners do the same thing. When you run in cushioned shoes, your feet are pushing through the soles in search of a hard, stable platform."

..."'Putting your feet in shoes is similar to putting them in a plaster cast,' says Dr [Gerard] Hartmann. 'If I put your leg in plaster, we'll find 40 to 60 per cent atrophy of the musculature within six weeks. Something similar happens to your feet when they're encased in shoes.'

When shoes are doing the work, tendons stiffen and muscles shrivel. Work them out and they'll arc up. 'I've worked with the best Kenyan runners,' says Hartmann, 'and they all have marvellous elasticity in their feet. That comes from never running in shoes until you're 17.'"

[image via Dvice]

Steven Leckart

Marathoners are Twittering [file under: c'mon]

Brian X. Chen writes for Gadget Lab:

CNN news producer Peter Wilkinson and Latitude Group CEO Alex Hoye stood out among 35,000 runners at Sunday's London Marathon -- in the digital world, at least, where they tweeted their progress with their cellphones...

"My biggest fear was it would be boring -- mile 1: running; mile 2: still running," Hoye said. "But I gave it a try and people were talking about it on mile 9, retweeting it, and I said fuck it. And the great thing is, every mile you have to get your milestone of what you're going to tweet. You have to think of something mildly amusing every mile."

I'm going to tweet my next run with Lisa. Maybe it will make the time fly by?

Joel Johnson

Tamiflu available online, if you're willing to pay a shoulder and a haunch

If you're the type who wants to keep Tamiflu on hand just in case someday a hard swinez gonna fall, Drug Delivery (dot ca) has supplies.

I know this is gadgety at all, but I keep seeing people ask online where they can get the stuff. DrugDelivery.ca is pretty reputable, but they're still going to gouge: $450 for 30 capsules, which is about how much an adult would need for one course.

For what it's worth, I think you'd be just as well off buying some nice hand soap.

Lisa Katayama

BBG on... Running

Running, jogging, sprinting, trotting. We all do it sometimes -- whether it's for cardio exercise or to catch the bus -- but there's a lot more to it than just moving your feet really fast. Today on BBG, we bring you: how Steven learned to drink more beer with a calorie-counting device called the GoWear Fit; how I learned to train for marathons with Nike Plus; cool products like shoes for trail running and powders to prevent sore butts and private bits; and a jangly band called The Joggers. Enjoy!

Steven Leckart

Coming up: how tech boosted Lisa's marathon dreams

Can gadgets (and a healthy dose of orange) help kick-start Lisa's plan to run a marathon?

Joel Johnson

Black Diode Fast-Path Brane-Power Amulet and other Beta wave-blocking devices

Rick Crammond writes:

Beautiful black diode Beta Blocker Amulet designed to dissipate offending Beta brain waves which allows the psychic-intuitive Alpha, Theta, and Delta waves to predominate. Explore alternate realities and parallel worlds.

Developed by EJ Gold, these unique works of art and science contain an actual working crystal diode radio circuit that has been specially tuned to resonate with the individual who uses one. All units come pre-tuned and ready to go. No batteries required. Inductive tapes and training available.

Only $250, plus shipping.

There are also these Pocket Blocker Beta Blocker models with stylish carrying cases for half the price.

But really, why dabble with entry level? Go right for the $1,850 Beacon AutoMapper:

BEACON AUTOMAPPER TWIN WAVEFORM PUP Recovery System uses twin dual-reciprocal frequency-phase-shift waveform processors with a common antenna-ground which stream into a wave-reduction combinant modified by the body through high-resonance jewelry-grade copper wrapped crystal double probes which include the body in the circuit, making it a waveform-modifier and attunement to the exact "key" waveform of the next-nearest "hottest" Parallel Universe Persona.

Xeni Jardin

Yoga "Eco Mat" Review: PrAna Revolution (Attention-Conservation Verdict: I Dig.)

I have practiced yoga on and off since I was a teenager, but in recent years, more off than on. Recently, when friends, colleagues, and family all seemed to be pointing out with greater frequency that I seemed particularly stressed (read: a total pain in the ass to be around), I made a commitment to switch that back to "on." It's been pretty great. I'm happier. The more I practice, the more centered I feel, physically, mentally, emotionally. And, the less of a total pain in the ass I am.

Yoga isn't about the accessories, and I loathe the idea that you have to have just the right gear, just the right teacher, just the right whatever to practice. You don't. But a good mat can really help. So when I got back into the groove of regular practice, I checked out a bunch of different mats -- from the ultra-thick black ones, to the "towel" kind folks like to use with "hot yoga," to the thin cheap synthetic ones. I have a stack of 8 of them sitting in the corner in this room, as I type this review.

But I've found my favorite now -- the just-released Revolution "eco" mat by PrAna.

It's sticky enough to help grip your fingers, palms, soles, and toes when you're doing balance poses -- and, truly, every pose involves some element of balance. It's 30" wide, much wider than standard mats. A better fit for taller yoga students like myself. It's lightweight enough that I can carry it comfortably on my back in the cool little carrying sack they sell. It's thick enough that I don't feel the need to add extra cushioning during practice on poses that can be hard on the bones. It's made of all-natural materials, so I'm not investing in future landfill cruft. The sticky part took a little getting used to in poses where I tend to drag the tops of my feet accross the mat in transition from one asana to the other, but now that I've been with it for a few weeks -- I don't know, it's like sleeping in a nice new bed, or moving into an awesome new home. It's familiar now, and just feels like an extension of my body.

I recently met PrAna creative David Kennedy, a friendly surfer who pops a mean Adho Mukha Svanasana. We practiced together (it was one of the most enjoyable BB review demos I can recall). I asked him to talk with us about some of the engineering considerations that went into the mat's design.

His reply follows, after the jump.

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