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Toyota's Solar Car Carrier

Japan's largest shipping line is spending $1.4 million developing a solar-diesel hybrid cargo ship that will carry new Toyotas to the United States.

03.09.2008 09:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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Should Medicare Pay for Genetic Testing?

This may be your last chance to tell the federal government whether Medicare should pay for a cutting-edge personalized medicine service. Last year, the FDA announced that a genetic test might help doctors avoid a common catastrophe -- giving their patients an excessive dose of warfarin. Each year more than 50,000 people taking that drug wind up in the hospital with serious internal bleeding because they've overdosed.

03.09.2008 06:37:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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Wired.com Readers' Best Geek Tattoos

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From DNA to 80 digits (and counting) of pi, Wired.com readers take their geek tattoos pretty seriously.

We asked you to flash your decorated flesh, and you obliged with pictures of some pretty wild skin art. Now it's time for the rest of the world to bask in your dermatological commitment to geekery.

Click through the gallery to see more ink inspired by science, computers and other geek obsessions.

Left:

Ctrl+Alt+Del
Submitted by Shahar

Photographer's comment:

"Comes to show it's that easy to reboot and start over.”

:

The Other Half of Rock
Submitted by Aaron Sarazan

Photographer's comment:

"My brother and I got matching tattoos. He has a Guitar, with binary that says 'Rock' -- I've got a D20 with 'Roll.'”

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Extra-Large DNA
Submitted by Brandon

Photographer's comment:

"Seven years I've been working on this. Phase 1 is complete."

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Geek 4 Life
Submitted by Christopher Holmok

Photographer's comment:

"I am a GEEK 4 LIFE, SUCKA!!!"

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Pi Tattoo
Submitted by Drew

Photographer's comment:

"Since tattoos were illegal in Oklahoma until only a couple of years ago, my friends and I made a tradition out of annual road trips for tattoos. Every time I can't think of something new, I add some more digits to pi. It's up to 80 digits."

:

No More Hunting for Tape Measures
Submitted by Dave Selden

Photographer's comment:

"As a woodworker-graphic designer, I use a tape measure or ruler almost every day. Now I have one always within arm's reach. I use it for my work, but also my play. I measured some trout for length with it on a fishing trip to Mount Hood this weekend."

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Louder!
Submitted by Ben Casey

Photographer's comment:

"I always wanted a musical tattoo, and the audio-out icon on my 266-Mhz G3 seemed more appropriate than a G clef.”

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Bassoon Keywork on My Leg
Submitted by Matthew S.

Photographer's comment:

"I was a bassoon major in college, and still play as a hobby. This gets a lot of interest, and many wrong guesses. The only people who have correctly identified it as a bassoon have all been players themselves. John at The Chameleon in Cambridge, Massachusetts, did a fantastic job on the artwork."

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Seattle, Third Avenue, 2004
Submitted by mooargyle

Photographer's comment:

"Taken with Nikkormat FT2 (film)."

03.09.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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Sylvania G — The Little Netbook That Couldn't

In the ever-crowding netbook segment there are some gems. The Asus Eee PC, the MSI Wind and the upcoming Dell Mini Inspiron just to name a few. Then there's Sylvania's G Netbook. This catastrophe is an affront to cheap, reliable computers on virtually every level with its buggy interface, chintzy chassis and crash-prone OS.

03.09.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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Sept. 3, 1803: Dalton Introduces Atomic Symbols

1803: English chemist-physicist John Dalton starts using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements.

Dalton, considered the father of modern atomic theory, made a logbook entry that day titled, "Observations on the Ultimate Particles of Bodies and their Combinations." It was the first use of symbols to represent the elements of modern chemistry.

He soon had a table of 21 elements arranged by atomic mass, which he presented in a scientific paper the following month. Eventually, he had 36 different symbols.

In his 1805 work, "A New System of Chemical Philosophy," Dalton propounded the tenets of his atomic theory:

1. The chemical elements are made of atoms.
2. The atoms of an element are identical in mass.
3. Atoms of different elements have different masses.
4. Atoms combine only in small, whole-number ratios like 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, etc.
5. Atoms can not be created or destroyed.

Dalton's symbols were not the ones we use today, but circles containing distinct symbols (a dot for hydrogen, a cross for sulfur), or circles containing letters (C for copper, L for lead). He used them singly to represent elements and in combination to show compounds.

A decade after Dalton formulated his symbols, Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius simplified the system. Half of Dalton's symbols used letters inside a circle to represent the element. Berzelius organized 47 elements with letters alone, and he based those letters not primarily on the English names, but on the Latin ones. In an era when all Europe's learned men (and the few women who were allowed into schools and universities) knew Latin, the shared language was an international lingua franca.

All but a handful of Berzelius' symbols are still used today. So it's Au for gold and Ag for silver, not the circled G and S of Dalton's original notation.

The simplified notation led the way for English analytical chemist John Newlands to formulate his Law of Octaves and a prototype periodic table of the elements in 1864, but it was Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev who really laid it all on the table with 63 elements in 1869. When he flipped his chart to a horizontal table two years later, he created a form much like what you see in chemistry textbooks and on the walls of chem labs today.

Alas, Mendeleev's table was based on atomic mass rather than atomic number, so details like the placement of tellurium and iodine didn't work out. He thought it was a question of inaccurate measurement or other experimental error. It was 1913 before English physicist Henry Moseley reorganized the periodic table by atomic number.

As for Dalton, his name lives on as alternate designation for the atomic mass unit or amu. Microbiologists and biochemists need a convenient measure for large organic molecules. Kilo-u or kilo-amu would be awkward, so a protein molecule might be said to have a mass of 35 kilodaltons, or kDA.

But it's Berzelius' symbols and what they mean that plague first-year chem students: You've got to "get it" before you can do anything else.

Source: History of the Atom, Elementymology

03.09.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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Mozilla Says: Chrome is Fast, But Not That Fast

Initial reviews of Chrome, released Tuesday, praised Google's browser for its blistering speed. But now that techies have had time to run some speed tests, the naysayers are having their say.

03.09.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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Alt Text: Ashes to Caches -- Cremation Services for Dead Geeks

I've been contemplating the ever-present specter of death and eternal nothingness, mostly because Warcraft has been getting a little dull lately. I'm not too worried about the disposition of what eternal soul I may or may not possess, but I realize my surviving loved ones will have to deal with the rapidly cooling rest of me.

I've pretty much settled on cremation, because of the efficiency and because the whole pallbearer conversation is so awkward. But then what? I'm just not an urn sort of guy. Those who are into urns, who are part of the urn scene, recognize me when I come in the door and avoid me.

Technology, as always, comes to the rescue. There are so many neat things you can do with the dead, burnt part of yourself these days that mulling over the options is like visiting a death-obsessed Apple Store. Here are just a few of the options available to you, me or anyone mortal.

Portrait

Ashes to Portraits will take your earthly remains, mix them into some paint and paint a picture ... of you! It's like a really sensitive mad scientist. If life were a movie, I'd completely go for this one, because you know you can't get made into a corpse-portrait without something cool happening. You'll come back to terrorize the family that moved into your home, or you'll help a young insecure woman find true love, or maybe you'll just drive someone insane with the staring. There's no bad outcome.

But this is real life, or so I'm told, so I see no reason to be painted into a portrait of me. I'd rather be a painting of a robot version of myself with vibro-claws, earthquake-beam eyes and a nice HD screen.

Space

This is the go-to destination for the rich, accomplished, dead geekish person, thanks to Space Services. Timothy Leary went this route. So did Gene Roddenberry.

I'm not so keen on it myself. Why should my remains get to do something I can't? I'm the one hauling these calcium phosphates around, but after I get hit by a semi or try the pork tartare, they get to go on the trip of a post-lifetime? Let my ashes buy their own freaking ticket if they want to go into low-Earth orbit so much.

Diamond

For those who enjoy jewelry, and the being thereof, LifeGem will infuse your remains into a diamond. Becoming one of the hardest substances known to humanity doesn't sound too bad -- at least I'd finally be in shape. Michael Phelps may have a perfect swimmer's body, but can he scratch chrysoberyl? I think not.

I'd want all my cremains made into diamond, though. No reason to break up the set. That's either a lot of diamonds, or one huge diamond, requiring the assets of a small European country to purchase. All the more reason to get one to install me now as overlord.

Pencils

Yes, you can get your ashes made into a bunch of pencils. I'm not sure if this is commercially available yet, but I don't really care. Who uses pencils? People who are bad at crosswords, that's who. And people taking Scantron tests. Those are not groups I want fondling my remains. I'm sure there are many people who would love nothing more than to spend their post-life being sharpened, but I'm not one of those people.

Fireworks

Of all the services I've covered, the fireworks option is my favorite. My loved ones will be touched to see me reincarnated briefly as a shining work of art in the night sky, and my enemies will enjoy seeing me blow up.

The toughest decision is whether to go for the smiley-face. They can make me into one of those smiley-face fireworks, but do you think they'd be willing to explain to the crowd that I'm being ironic?

- - -

Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a moralizer, a morphologist and a memento mori.

03.09.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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Souring U.S.-Russia Relations Threaten Space Station

The U.S. ticket on the Russian Soyuz is tied to the Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Agreement, one part of which bans payments to Russia in connection with the ISS (pdf) unless Russia is taking steps to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other weapons technology. A waiver for this part of the agreement runs out in 2011.

03.09.2008 03:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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What's Inside: 2000 Flushes — a Nonstop Potty

Chlorinated hydantoins
Ironically, you can clean a toilet with urine. No, not by aiming at the stains, but by using hydantoins — organic compounds sometimes employed as anticonvulsants and that can be made from a mixture of amino acids and urea. Chlorinate the hydantoins and they become a magical ingredient — bleach. But watch for "vacation drip": If you don't flush for a while (say, while off camping or when you give in to those comfy adult diapers), the chlorine can eat away older rubber valve flappers. And then your toilet might end up running constantly.

Hydrated alumina
Also known as aluminum hydroxide, this is a solid formed when alumina reacts with water. Here it's one of the salts that helps control the rate at which the puck dissolves, so the bleaching action can last for up to four months — giving you 16 _2/3 flushes per day.

Sodium chloride
Table salt also helps control how fast the tablet dissolves. As a side benefit it may reduce germs by turning the water slightly briny. Unless, that is, you've got a salt-loving extremophile in your bowl, in which case you're gonna need a stronger toilet sanitizer.

Sodium lauryl sulfate
Found in hundreds of bathroom products, SLS is a great foam and lather producer. It is made by combining sulfonic acid with lauryl alcohol and sodium carbonate; the resulting soap-like compound traps greasy particles, which can then be rinsed away.

Cocamide MEA
Cocamide is derived from the acids in coconut oil. MEA stands for monoethanolamine, which is in everything from hair dye to oven cleaner. Together they work as a powerful detergent and another dissolution retardant. Most of the stains in your toilet are going to be from, well, natural organic residues, and MEA is a master at cutting through caked-on organics. It loosens the material so it can be easily washed off with the next flush.

Sodium citrate
The nonorganic stains in your toilet likely come from hard water deposits. These can grow there like rock candy, eventually needing to be acid-washed or chiseled away. Sodium citrate softens the water by locking up (chelating!) calcium, magnesium, iron, and other metals that might be found in your water supply.

Acid blue 9
The full name of this colorant: N-Ethyl-N-(4[(4-(ethyl[(3-sulfophenyl)methyl]amino) phenyl)-(2-sulfophenyl)methylene]-2, 5-cyclohexadien-1-ylidene)3-sulfobenzenemethanaminium hydroxide inner salt, disodium salt. Whew! So why add blue to a cleaning agent? It's actually just a marker — when it's gone, your 2000 Flushes are up.

02.09.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories

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Typewriters Morph Into Creepy Sci-Fi Creatures

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

Jeremy Mayer collects antique typewriters, but he doesn't display them in a curio cabinet. Instead, he tears them apart, then turns the components into sleek, sci-fi-inspired bugs, skeletons and anatomically correct human figures.

Mayer, who describes his work as a cross between Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical drawings and the gritty futures imagined by sci-fi maestros William Gibson and Philip K. Dick, assembles his artwork without welding, soldering or gluing.

Left: It takes roughly 40 typewriters and 1,000 hours for Mayer to assemble a full-scale figurine like this reclining female form. He's made only three full-size human figures over the last 14 years, but as he prepares for a spring show in San Diego, he'll construct four in 2008.

"I'd been trying to get my figures to look less creepy," said Mayer. "This one has so much personality and presence, which helps."

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

Mayer put together this metallic bust for a 2005 art show in the Seattle area. To fashion the hair, he fitted multiple typebars onto the mechanical cranium and pulled out the innards of a machine to create steel skin.

Later, Mayer realized he created the head in his likeness. "He's somewhat of a broken-looking character," said Mayer. "And somehow it looks exactly like me. I hope to do more of them."

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

Mayer's creations, like this skeletal aluminum framework, can stand close to seven feet tall and often weigh between 60 and 100 pounds.

"I didn't make him anatomically correct, because I thought people would freak out about a robot with a penis," said Mayer. Now he's ready to go further with this piece, which he finished in 1994.

"I may retrofit it," said the artist, who often travels to homes where his artwork is displayed to tweak the designs.

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

Although perfecting steely skeletons is Mayer's main building obsession, he also likes to assemble macabre felines. He estimates that he's made about 14 of them -- and they are always popular with buyers.

"All you have to do is look at StumbleUpon and see how much people on the internet love cats," said Mayer. They tend to stand about two feet tall.

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

"I'm not going for whimsy," said Mayer, who experimented with a series of machine masks like this one for a show. "So I will probably never do a set [of the masks] again." Still, Mayer says he enjoys toying around with spare parts that don't end up in one of his massive pieces.

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

To create his mecha-cricket, Mayer fashioned the guts of a Royal typewriter into the abdomen and thorax. In order to keep the body color uniform, he salvaged similar pieces from the typewriter graveyard in his studio.

The legs are bent keys, and the head was made from a dismantled rubber pad. The insect measures about 18 inches long, from its spindly legs to the tips of its antennae.

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

This standing humanoid was commissioned by a Star Trek fanatic and friend of Mayer's who wanted a sculpture with robotic capabilities and trolled eBay for parts.

Mayer installed a Handy Board processor in the chest cavity and rigged it to a motion sensor and controls that cause the head to wiggle and the eyes to blink.

"The actual mechanics work really well," said Mayer.

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

Mayer often takes inspiration from the shape of the typewriter itself to mold his figures. He prefers to dismantle Royal Safari typewriters for his female creations, using the parts for the inner thighs, labia and breasts.

"That's how the typewriter was made in the first place," said Mayer. "The shape resembles the human body and forms of nature."

: Photos courtesy Jeremy Mayer

Mayer, 36, crafts his typewriter creations in this studio in Tahoe City, California.

He scours flea markets and second-hand stores weekly for vintage versions of the original word processor. After breaking the machines down by hand, Mayer spends hours categorizing the parts.

02.09.2008 06:00:00 - Wired: Top Stories