A friend passed this along to me earlier today – the Martin Jetpack is a real device; works (as the video shows) fairly well, and gives the controller incredible control over their flight. The jetpack is made by the Martin Aircraft Company, a company with a history of experience in flight, so this isn’t your usual crazy-guy’s-garage style of jetpack you’re probably used to seeing videos of. Apparently, the jetpack is even self-righting, so if something happened and you let go of the controls, you wouldn’t crash – it would just right itself and hover in-place.

You could have one, if you want one bad enough! You just have to sit on a 12-month waiting list before you have the opportunity to spend $90,000 to get one!

[ Gearlog :: You, Too, Could Own a Working Jetpack for $90,000 ]

Amelia Earhart is one of my favorite people. Seriously, when people ask that hokey question of “if you could go back in time and meet any person in history who would you meet,” she’s up there on my list. She’s an amazing person, an incredible character, and a woman whose very nature was made of bravery, courage, guts, and brilliance. She was a dominating combination of power, brains, and willpower – one that I think only comes along once every several generations. I could only wish to be half the person she was.

That being said, he final resting place, and what happened to her on that round-the-world flight has been shrouded in mystery for decades, and I admit that part of that mystery is what enthralls me about her. What happened to her exactly – whether she went down in the pacific or wound up on some island or managed to survive somewhere somehow for the rest of her days – is one of the greatest mysteries of our time.

And now some researchers believe they’ve found where her final resting place may have been found, and the theory is that she managed to crash land on an uninhabited island off of a reef in the pacific, and she and her navigator likely survived and died on that island from any number of reasons that would bring down a castaway – hunger, dehydration, injury, infection, and so on.

Personally, it’s not as glamorous as I would have liked Amelia to go, but she was more than aware of the risks with every action she took. That and the fact that this is still a theory, and the mystery still lives on. But if you want to read the going theory, head over to Discovery below to read more about it; it’s really really compelling.

[ Discovery News :: Earhart's Final Resting Place Believed Found ]

Over at H+, there’s an interesting article that runs down some of the cyborg exoskeleton technologies that we’ve heard about in recent years but haven’t seen much more of than a few promo videos and loose articles over. There are some pretty awesome videos of the Japanese and American versions of the exoskeleton as well.

The premise of the story is that these types of exoskeletons could soon become as common or more common than bicycles: of course they have to be extraordinarily affordable for that to come anywhere close to reality, and right now considering their cost they’re only being considered for operations where people need the body augmentation, like soldiers on the battlefield, police in riot gear or violent areas, firefighters and rescue personnel who need the strength to lift heavy objects or rubble off of people, and so on.

That being said, it’s an extraordinarily amazing concept, and the fact that you can easily lift heavy objects and run long distances and take steep climbs with minimal exertion on your body while wearing an exoskeleton like this makes the premise more than incredible on its own. I’m sure we’ll see these in regular use either by the military or by first-responders in the next couple of years.

[ H+ Magazine :: Cyborg Exoskeletons May Soon Become as Common as Bicycles ]

Sustainable energy is always good stuff, and being the leading producer of wind energy in the world shows that finally, energy companies in the United States are serious about taking this technology into the mainstream. Even so, a dismal percentage of America’s power demand is supplied by wind, but it looks like the numbers are only going up, and that’s good news.

Investing in renewable energies and technologies is definitely the way forward, and leaving behind older, dirty technologies that exploit natural resources and leave our home, our planet, barren and lifeless is probably the last thing we all want. Here’s to hoping the trend continues and that we really do see a revolution in green tech. Wind energy is just the beginning, and the US is sitting on enough land and varied climate zones to really make wind power a significant part of our energy profile.

[ Treehugger: USA is the Number One Biggest Wind Energy Producer ]

A fascinating web project that’s led up to the release of the book by Alan Weisman, The World Without Us, the World Without Us site is an interactive tour through the next 5 billion years if the human race vanished tomorrow. Of course, some of the conclusions are the same; that at the end of that time period the sun would start to die and swell up to scorch the Earth, but there are more than a few unexpected things that would happen if the human race vanished from the face of the planet in an instant.

For example, without constant pumping, New York City’s subways system would likely flood within a matter of days. Millions of birds killed by high-tension lines and other human interaction would survive, exploding the bird population, but on the flip side the common house cat would likely go feral and decimate the squirrel, groundhog, rabbit, and bird populations in areas where cats are kept as pets today. In a couple of hundred years, cities on river deltas and built below sea level would simply wash away, and bridges and other permanent fixtures would collapse. Even so, it would still take hundreds of thousands of years for microbes that could biodegrade plastic to evolve, and over 10 million years in the future, bronze sculptures and monuments would still be recognizable should anyone ever see them.

The events that would take place as time progresses are incredibly interesting, and definite eye-openers when it comes to what imprints people leave on the planet really last and how long they’ll stick around. Some of the things that you think would stick around for a long time don’t, and others that you don’t imagine having a significant impact will live on for millions of years.

[ The World Without Us: Did You Know ]

The notion of wireless electricity is as old as Nicola Tesla’s brilliant (or mad) inventions and ideas. The trouble is that while transmitting energy wirelessly is easy (eg, microwaves, radio, etc) transmitting electrical power is difficult, and results in a lot of signal loss in the process. Physicists at MIT (go Physicists!), inspired by the annoying noises that a cell phone makes when it’s battery is dying and its not plugged in to charge, went to work on an idea that so far has only been seen in science fiction books and games: (think Protoss “pylons” in Starcraft) being able to create a “field” of electrical power that objects in range can draw energy from and operate with. They’ve dubbed the technology WiTricity (for “Wireless Electricity”) and have been able to design copper coils that successfully transmitted enough power wirelessly to light up a light bulb.

Don’t expect to charge your laptop from a wireless power station in the middle of your coffee shop anytime soon though, the technology drops about 50% of the broadcast energy between the transmitter and the destination, and only works in the lab within a 7-or-so foot radius. Even so, the scientists at MIT are ready to license their technology to companies who might continue to work on it along with them.

[ CNet News: MIT Crafts Wireless Electricity ]

You know that here at Gears and Widgets we’re huge fans of green technology and hybrid automobiles. We love that kind of stuff; it’s not about some political debate for us, it’s about using technology to make the world a cleaner, greener, better place for our kids that we leave behind than the world we inherited from our parents – there should be nothing political or argumentative about common sense things like clean air, fresh water, and a healthy environment – we’ll leave the “debate” up to the politicians, for what it’s worth, but we think technology and industry, with the right motivation and some nudging by people and government, can make the world a better place.

So in that vein, Toyota’s been leading the way with the Prius hybrid vehicle. It landed at the top of Consumer Reports’ Customer Satisfaction Survey, and people not just think it’s a good car for the environment, but they love to own it, they love to drive it, and they just plain love it. It’s a great example of how with the right intentions, even the much maligned auto industry can make a green product that’s good for the environment and our communities, and just plain kicks ass and people clamor to have one.

So at the Geneva auto show, the same place that Toyota unveiled their revolutionary auto-parallel parking system last year, they’re showing off their Hybrid-X concept vehicle this year (shown above) that a lot of people think will wind up being the base design for the redesigned and remodeled 2009 Prius. of course it won’t look quite like the photos in the gallery; the Hybrid-X is a concept car and thus packed with futuristic displays and curvy surfaces that would never pass a Joe Blow focus group, but I have to admit that even if the basic design makes it into the production vehicle, I’d love to have one. It’s out and out gorgeous. Check out all of the photos and some speculation about Toyota’s futuristic and incredibly geeky design changes at AutoblogGreen.

[ AutoblogGreen : Geneva Motor Show: Toyota Hybrid-X concept ]

An Italian company has begun manufacturing a kind of cement that it claims will absorb pollution from vehicles travelling on it or around it; according to a report by the Italian news agency ANSA. While the claims have yet to be verified completely, if this is true, depending on the cost and availability of the materials, this could mean that the roads we drive on and the streets we walk on, or more potentially, according to Italcementi, the Italian company that invented the compound as a building material, our buildings themselves could potentially absorb some of the pollutants that our cars put into the air! Sound amazing? You’re right-and apparently so are the results; also included in the report is the statement that teast on an Italian road reduced the amount of nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide in the air in the vicinity by up to 65%. The compound is called TX Active, and here’s how it works:

It functions via a chemical process called photocatalysis, whereby sunlight triggers a chemical reaction when titanium dioxide on the surface of the cement comes into contact with pollutants in the air. TX Active works most effectively in bright sunlight.

Definitely amazing. Now, when do we see it in America so we can slather our roads with the stuff or build new skyscrapers out of it? Anything to help the pollution problem in North America, especially a technologicially driven one that can’t be complained about politically, would be a boon to both the auto/oil industry and environmentalists and everyday citizens concerned about clean air and water.

[ PhysOrg.com :: New Kind of Cement Absorbs Pollution ]

One can only hope so! Many studies have shown that animal testing has only marginal effectiveness, and is not a reliable indicator of the behavior or effects of a drug or treatment when applied to humans. Articles posted in journals like Nature and in circulations like Scientific American have lent credibility to the notion that there may be a day when computer models will be far more accurate than animal testing, and can do more varied studies, simulations, and run multiple tests using hardware that can be purchased for a fraction of the cost of breeding, maintaining, and experimenting on animals, using significantly less space, and return better results that can lead to more aggressive and faster breakthroughs in areas like cancer research, vaccine research, immune studies, and new treatments and drugs for all of those conditions, other debilitating diseases, and more.

But before we say goodbye to our faithful lab rats that have given so many lives in the study of how to save human ones, computing technology has a ways to go before it can be proven to be both more cost effective and resource effective than animal study, and additionally, scientists will have to be retrained from the classical mentality of studying animal behavior and then dissecting them and retrained in essentially computer science. Between advances in computer modeling and tissue culturing however, we could very well soon see the end of scientific testing as we know it, speed up the saving of millions of human lives while saving millions of animal lives, and further press the progress of technology and technology in scientific research. The idea has wide support among the scientific community, but it has a ways to go. Today’s New Scientist has the scoop. No link to the full article without paying, but you get the idea from the abstract.

[ New Scientist :: Can Computer Models Replace Animal Testing? ]

In honor of Earth Day [ http://www.earthday.net/ ], which was April 22nd, CNet has posted an article that addresses an incredibly important question of our time: “Where do our computers go when they die?”

Well, the answer is usually “The landfill,” and given the amount of harmful chemicals, plastics, metals and composites that should be properly disposed of that are in the average PC, this is a tragedy waiting to happen; a massive breakdown of chemicals and runoff that could poison soil and groundwater and clog landfills with non-degradable components that will sit there for thousands of years to come. So what’s the solution? Recycle your computer!

The CNet article includes a great deal of information on how you can recycle your PC, including looking for a local hazardous materials disposal center in your area, checking with your PC manufcaturer to see if they have a PC takeback or disposal program (Apple just announced their new program here: [ Apple :: Recycling ] for example) and making sure that you’ve completely erased the data from your hard drives before turning over your old PC to someone who will hopefully break it down and dispose of it properly. Check out CNet’s article here, and their Quick Guide to disposing of your system the right way:

[ CNet :: Trash that PC in an Eco-Friendly Way ]

[ CNet :: Trash your old tech--the green way ]