>Star Wars-Inspired Hover Chair

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The futuristic Lounger is a revolutionary magnetic ‘hover’ furniture, designed by UK designer Keith Dixon and inspired by the Star Wars Landspeeder.

British design, precision engineered and British built by hand. Defying gravity with the use of repelling magnetic forces in both the bed and base this contemporary lounger is comfortable, practical and stylish. Permanent magnets can also help back, muscular problems and headaches, so our furniture not only looks good – it may make you feel good too. The sensation that you feel as you lay back and close your eyes is totally different, like floating on a cloud.

Custom build options available. By default we supply Hoverit Lounges in clear acrylic which allows you to see every component. Each lounger comes with a clear anti-scratch mat and a limited edition certificate and serial number.

The Lounger chair from Hoverit Ltd. will be available from March 16. The price has been set to £5,875 (about $11,600 USD). – geekalerts

Might be fun, but could this cause anemia by pulling the iron out of your blood if the magenets are too strong?

>Eight-Armed Animal Preceded Dinosaurs

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An eight-armed creature that looked more like a modern party favor than a living animal colonized a large section of the world’s oceans over 300 million years before the first dinosaurs emerged, suggests a new study.

The findings represent the first comparable animal fossils from the Ediacaran Period, 635 to 541 million years ago, which appear in two drastically different preservation environments — black shale of South China and quartz rock of South Australia.

“According to paleogeographic reconstructions, South China and South Australia were close to each other at the time, belonging to a supercontinent called Gondwana,” lead author Maoyan Zhu told Discovery News. …

Zhu, Gehling and their colleagues collected eight compressions of the animals from the Doushantuo Formation at Wenghui, China. They then traveled to Flinders Ranges, Australia, and collected seven specimens, leaving 31 others on two excavated and reassembled beds. The findings are published in the November issue of Geology. There is no question the creature, believed to represent one type of animal, had a lot of arms.

“The eight arms are clearly preserved in our specimens,” Zhu said, adding that the arms were tubular and in close contact with each other, but not joined. He and his colleagues believe the animal was a soft-bodied, dome-shaped organism that lived on seabeds and fed by absorbing dissolved nutrients from the ambient environment. –discovery

>Iceman mummy leaves few relatives

>What is better on Halloween than a real mummy and a mystery ?

Genetic material from the Iceman mummy suggests this Neolithic man has no modern-day relatives on his mom’s side of the family. The Neolithic mummy dubbed the Iceman likely has no relatives alive today on his mom’s side of the family, finds a new study of the ancient guy’s genes.

The remains of the Iceman (also called Ötzi, Frozen Fritz and Similaun Man) were discovered accidentally in 1991 by German tourists in the Eastern Alps. Since then, a suite of tests has opened a window into the mummy’s life and death. For instance, the Iceman was about 45 years old when he died; he was probably a hunter-gatherer while alive; he sustained a shoulder injury from an arrow and might have died from head trauma; and his last meal included unleavened bread and meat.

Now, researchers have fast-forwarded genetically from 5,300 years ago when Ötzi died to the present to look at whether his maternal lineage is alive and kicking. It’s probably not. The research team, led by Franco Rollo of the University of Camerino and Luca Ermini working at Camerino and the University of Leeds, extracted DNA from Iceman‘s rectum. They analyzed the genome of the cells’ energy-making structures, called mitochondria.

“You only get mitochondrial DNA from your mother, and she gets it from her mother and so on, so it forms an unbroken link all the way back to the common maternal ancestor of all of us,” said researcher Martin Richards of the University of Leeds.

The results showed that Ötzi fits in genetically with a particular group of living individuals who share a common ancestral DNA sequence. Over time, different individuals and groups can branch off from the main group, genetically speaking. Ötzi’s DNA belonged to a cluster of lineages whose members are still common throughout Europe today.

However, nearly all members of this cluster belong to one of three sub-lineages, or sub-clusters. And Ötzi didn’t. His DNA placed him on a completely distinct, fourth sub-lineage, for which there are no other members alive today — at least none have been found so far. His lineage branched away from his nearest modern relatives about 20,000 years ago.

That means Ötzi’s maternal lineage is either extremely rare or has died out….  – msnbc

>Programmable Genetic Clock Made Of Blinking Florescent Proteins Inside Bacteria Cells

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UC San Diego bioengineers have created the first stable, fast and programmable genetic clock that reliably keeps time by the blinking of fluorescent proteins inside E. coli cells. The clock’s blink rate changes when the temperature, energy source or other environmental conditions change, a fact that could lead to new kinds of sensors that convey information about the environment through the blinking rate. One next step is to synchronize the clocks within large numbers of E. coli cells so that all the cells in a test tube would blink in unison. “This would start to look a lot like the makings of a fascinating environmental sensor,” said Jeff Hasty, a UC San Diego bioengineering professor and senior author on the Nature paper. Researchers in his lab have also developed sophisticated microfluidic systems capable of controlling environmental conditions of their E. coli cells with great precision. This enables the bioengineers to track exactly what environmental conditions affect their clocks’ blink rates. – sd

One of the great themes of our time is “hacking biology” and I think we are just seeing the beginnings of what is possible. If we can survive the environmental and geopolitical challenges we will face over the next 100 years, the advances will be jaw dropping. I hope my jaw is around to enjoy it.

>Elvis still top-earning dead celebrity

>I’m interested in Elvis for a few reasons: we share the same birthday, he had a great voice, and I’ve been curious for years as to what it was exactly that made him a star. Whatever that force was, it has outlasted his own life force.

The King of Rock ’n’ Roll shed this mortal coil 31 years ago, but he remains the top-earning dead celebrity for the second year in a row, according to Forbes.com.

Elvis Presley pulled in $52 million in the past year, helped by increased traffic at his Graceland estate to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death, and new ventures including the Elvis Sirius Satellite Radio show, according to the moneycentric Web site.

“While things might be topsy-turvy in the financial markets above ground, it’s still a bull market in the boneyard,” Forbes.com said.

In fact, a dead Elvis earned more between October 2007 and October 2008 than some music biz biggies who are very alive, including Justin Timberlake ($44 million) and Madonna ($40 million). Madge must be heartbroken.

Coming in at No. 2 with $33 million in earnings was cartoonist Charles Schulz, who died in 2000 and is best known for his “Peanuts” comic strip, while Aussie actor Heath Ledger nabbed third place.

Ledger, 28, died from an accidental prescription drug overdose in January and his last completed film role was as the Joker in “The Dark Knight.”

“With the ‘The Dark Knight’ grossing $991 million in box office revenue worldwide, we estimate his earnings at $20 million,” the Web site said.

The fourth-richest dead celeb is German-born physicist Albert Einstein, whose estate raked in $18 million in earnings, mainly from Disney’s “Baby Einstein” videos and toys for children.

Deceased TV producer Aaron Spelling, he of “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Charlie’s Angels” fame, was ranked No. 5 with $15 million in earnings.

Check out http://www.forbes.com for the full list. – bostonh

>Halloween treat: Xeno’s Spooky Sound Effects Radio

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Click the pumpkin for endless random spooky sounds.

I wanted a radio station that would play spooky sounds for my haunted house non-stop. I couldn’t find one, so I made one.  Be warned: Xeno’s spooky sound effects radio station is fully haunted so each listener will hear something different.  Wahhahah. Whahaha. Whahah. Ha. Ha.

Here are some notes to ease your pain:
1) you must allow pop-up windows for http://www.xenophilia.com or you won’t hear a thing.
2) If you don’t already have it, you may need the Quicktime plug in, or this smaller spam free alternative, to play the WAV files in your web browser.
3) Firefox users: minimize the little window that pops up. It reloads at random, and if you don’t minimize it, it may pop up in the way of your other work.
4) I recommend turning your speakers down and using this as a background soundscape.

P.S. The random silences are intentional.