tech@vedella

A species of sea slug can become photosynthetic by eating plants. The creatures eat algae for two weeks when they're young, and are then capable of surviving off the algae's photosynthetic abilities for the rest of their year-long lives. (Via Jurgen Hubert)

Every year, intrepid Ph.D. students face off in a high-stakes competition for honor, glory, and the intermingling of science and art. The goal: Dance your Ph.D. thesis. I showed you the finalists last year. This year, Science magazine has posted all 53 entries online, before the finalists are chosen. I'll confess, I've not yet watched [...]

This custom silver ink, developed by materials researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, allows you to draw working circuits out on paper. It's extremely cool, and the video shows you step-by-step how they make it. Bonus: This ink provides an actual reason to use cursive. Video Link (Via Aaron Rowe)

Apple Inc says today that 4 million iPhone 4S have been sold since it went on sale October 14. In-store sales began Friday in Japan, Australia, France, the UK, Germany, Canada and the US. Over 1 million orders were received online in the first 24 hours, up from 600,000 for the iPhone 4.

Richard Branson blogs: "A historic day today in New Mexico as we will be opening the first commercial spaceport in the world - Spaceport America." More at the Virgin Galactic website. We'll have photos from the unveiling event on Boing Boing soon.

We're honored to be first to present the video for MC Frontalot's Critical Hit, starring Brian Posehn alongside the nerdcore rapper. The track's from Frontalot's latest album, Solved, which is available from iTunes and Amazon for less than a tenner. You can download the single and read the lyrics at the official website. Critical Hit's [...]

Gawker has published the account of Elana Carroll, one of the 24 (or more?) "Occupy Wall Street" protesters in New York who were arrested at the Greenwich Village Citibank location this weekend.

Photo: La Repubblica, Italy That is the graffiti in one of the destroyed streets in this Saturday's "indignati" demonstration. It ended in violence against the police, city security, and last but not least the pacifist organizers of the manifestation, in tune with the world wide movements OCCUPY. The graffiti sounds like some epic motto of [...]

My latest Guardian column, "Adult content filters can't replace good parenting," is a critique of the media coverage of Britain's new national "adult content" filter. The reporting on this story all led with uncritical repetition of the government's line that this would block "all adult content" -- nevermind that no two people agree on a [...]

Government workers are dying to get their hands on tablet computers, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and published by Government Attic. The files show, however, that security protocols may result in a slow roll-out at some agencies. The Federal Trade Commission, National Archives and Records Administration, Deparment of Veterans Affairs, [...] Presented By: Visualize the Future of the Anywhere Office   Has your company seen an increase in workplace mobility? Does the cloud really matter for your business? Make sure you’re in the know with Cisco and be prepared for what’s in store. Read, learn, share and discuss the future of the network. http://network.cisco.com/ Ads by Pheedo

Designer Joey Roth is auctioning a limited run of 24-karat gold Sorapots to help out BB pal Amit Gupta, who recently fell ill with leukaemia: "South Asians are severely underrepresented in the pool of registered bone marrow donors. 100% of profits from the auctions will go to drives, both here and in India, to find [...]

Michael Greer is a Bookbinder. I interviewed him to find out more about his unusual profession and his recent creation, the binary Genesis. Avi Solomon Could you tell us a bit about yourself? Michael Greer I’m a guy who loves books. For years that’s meant teaching literature both here and abroad. I like getting into [...]

I Heart Guts sells absolutely excellent plush internal organs. I ran into them at New York Comic-Con today and had a chance to play with their wares, and they're adorable, well-made, and well, organy. They also have a fine line in cute anthropromorphic internal organ stickers.

Derek Slater is my former colleague at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, now serving as a policy analyst at Google. He's just published a barn-burning essay called "#noimnotgoingtolawschool: Or, Why I Love Legal Clinics as well as Lawyers and Law Professors That See Their Primary Job As Helping Students Reach Their Goals, Or, Disrupting Law Schools." [...]

Wade sez, "This cartoon appeared in U.S. Money vs. Corporation Currency, ;Aldrich plan' by Alfred Owen Crozier, published by The Magnet company in Cincinnati, Ohio." *I have one (1) delicious knuckle-sandwich here for the first wisenheimer to engage in octopi/octopuses pedantry. "Octopuses Wall Street?" Really? (Thanks, Wade!)

It appears that infamous wire fraud criminal Charles Keating doesn't have as much influence on the availability of pornography at 7-Eleven as he once did. Photo by Mitch O'Connell

From the Independent Florida Alligator via Guardian UK, via Greg Mitchell's blog, proof that awesomeness sometimes just runs in the family: Ellas Anthony McDaniel, the 56-year-old son of rhythm and blues singer Bo Diddley, was arrested for trespassing in the downtown plaza named for his father. At least four members of the Occupy Gainesville movement, [...]

Some post-steampunk ideas I had at yesterday's preview screening of Vintage Tomorrows (a documentary on steampunk and its relationship to technology), premised on the idea that new movements will simply subtract letters: * Teampunks: dress like athletes * Eamespunks: design chairs * M-punks: use mobile devices * Punkpunks: inhabit a notional contrafactual alternate history where [...]

One for the demonstrators in some 1,000 cities in some 80 countries who are #occupying: The arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty in Madison Square Park, New York. These portions of the Statue were exhibited to raise funds for the completion of the statue and its pedestal. The arm and torch remained in [...]

Fortunately, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an opinion on Gitmo detainee Adnan Farhan Abd Al Latif's appeal against his continued detention by the Obama administration. Unfortunately, it's none of your business. Latif's legal status is "indeterminate", according to Wikipedia, despite a judge ordering the administration to "take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic [...]