Ultrasonic frogs discovered in China

When I was a kid, my mother would complain that I'd tune her out whenever it came to taking out the garbage or mowing the lawn. In other words, when it came to all the stuff I didn't want to do.

"You have your own radio frequency in your head," she would say in mock--and sometimes, real annoyance.

Turns out I wasn't so special after all. Researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of California, Los Angeles have turned up a frog in central China whose ears can shift to different sound frequencies. The analogy offered by the researchers, who also included scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (at Harvard Medical School), is that of a radio tuner.

Their work appears this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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IDEA award winners: From laptops to futuristic doors

What do a MacBook Air and a submersible rolling pin have in common--besides both being made on planet Earth? Both are winners in this year's International Design Excellence Awards. The competition, run by the Industrial Designers Society of America and sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine, invites businesses and students the world over to submit their best inventions or design concepts.

Out of 205 IDEA awards this year, some, like the iPhone, are no-brainers, while many conceptual designs do much to stretch the imagination. Though the list is brimming with interesting gadgets, a few caught our eye.

Samsung's Design Touch concept, which won a gold medal, is a digital camera for the visually impaired. The operator takes a picture, and sound is recorded for 3 seconds after the shutter clicks.
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Nail watch: The future of telling time

In the year 2154, no one will want to wear wrist watches anymore. They'll probably be out of fashion or too bulky for our hands. The in-thing will be the nail watch, known as the TX54. Well, that is what Timex and Core77.com think will be the future in their 150th anniversary of the global design competition themed "2154: The Future of Time".

TX54, the runner-up in the event, is a concept by three Americans designers: Napoleon Merana, Steffen Schubert and David Takacs. The nail watch is designed to be hooked to our thumbnail. The user should be able to view the time in the dark just by pressing the tip of the thumbnail. There's also the ability to switch between colors available. It is also disposable. One hopes it's waterproof as well, just in case you forget to take it off while you are in the shower.

Although the TX54 is a good concept, I can't imagine how small the numbers are going to be, probably putting a strain on your eyes.

Credit: Core77

Step aside, Batmobile. Here comes the MonoMobile

Save the cheerleader, save the world. Taking it to heart, two Cincinnati denizens with pompom/rah-rah enthusiasm believe they have the answer to mankind's transportation woes. Enter the Liberator Car, an ultralight electric car that piggybacks off the monorail. The concept involves using wheels attached to the roof to connect to the monorail for short distance travel. So while in town, the car cruises along on battery power. To go further afield, rather than get onto a jam-packed expressway, simply hook the car onto an electrified monorail, sit tight, and it'll take you to your destination while topping up your car battery. How nifty is that? Tests are currently being carried out by both partners, though we'd love more details on how the car gets suspended to the rail and how stable it gets up there in an ultralight car frame while zipping along at 200mph. But if--and we hope it does--this takes off, it'll definitely bring new meaning to commuting by rail.

Via MonoMobile

Storing words and images in vapor

We've all at one time or another written words in vapor--leaving impressions on misted glass either on a Coke bottle, a coffee table or a car window. Now, apparently, Israeli scientists have found a way to store those images… in warm atomic vapor. And it's not all just hot air. The cool thing here is that the 2s in the image aren't projected onto steam or vapor. Instead, they're made up of vapor; sort of like Hellboy II's resident ectoplasmic psychic BPRD agent, Johann Krauss. Which is an amazing trick considering that atoms are constantly moving around in a floating cloud. If you're wondering what the purpose is for choosing a medium that's so volatile and fluid, the team from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology claims this method will open the doors to quantum communication and image processing. In the meantime, mastery of the technology still has a ways to go, with the current storage time of 30 microseconds barely enough to catch a trailer of Hellboy II.

Via Physorg

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