There’s always a lot of fuss about getting other things to go as fast or faster than the speed of light. But what about changing the speed of light? Is there anything useful we could do by slowing light down rather than speeding things up? As it turns out, there are all kinds of benefits to be had from slowing light down and making it easier to capture, which is why MIT has been working on nanotech “metamaterials” that can do just that: Slow down the speed of light.

Careful readers will remember those Taco Bell tacos impregnated with Doritos flavored dust that we reported were popping up in out-of-the-way places across the U.S.. At the time, I was confident that the shells were real but that they would never be making a nation-wide appearance. They would remain a test-market curiosity, beloved by a few. However, that seems to not be the case as Taco Bell has announced that the shells will be debuting nationwide next month. What’s more, they’ve already made millions of them to anticipate demand. Really.

If I had to pick one thing I was absurdly good at, it certainly wouldn’t be arcade basketball, but I would probably take that skill over nothing. Regardless of its uselessness, it’s a skill that is very impressive to watch. Just check out how many baskets this crazy guy scores. I’d try to figure out exactly how many by watching the score and doing super-hard maths, but it’s too late on a Friday to think about numbers. The grand total is approximately a billion, we’ll leave it at that.

Back in 2009, Google blew some minds by showing off Liquid Galaxy and displaying Google Earth on an impressive 8-screen conglomeration. Of course, now it’s 2011, so what does that mean? It means a 48-screen display. Yeah. As if that weren’t enough, they’re going to be taking the tech open source, so all you crazy 64-screen-owning lunatics can try your hand at one-upping the record, if you’re into that sort of thing.

It has always been a pain to feed soldiers in the field. You may remember learning about hardtack back in school, and how it often came with a side of maggots. Today things are a little better with MREs, but just ask anyone who’s eaten one and they’ll tell you they aren’t pleasant. Now, however, there’s been an advance in soldier-feeding technology: A sandwich that has a 3 year shelf life. That’s right, you can eat this sandwich 3 years down the line, and it’ll still be good. Well, as good as it was in the first place anyways.

A recently published research paper documents what is thought to be a world first, pure, unadulterated urine being used as a fuel for microbial fuel cells. In other words: Pure pee-power. The breakthrough here isn’t the use of mircobial fuel cells (MFCs), but rather the use of undistilled urine as a power sources. MFCs have been used to create electricity in the past, but from fuels like bacteria, sugars, dirt, and various chemical compontents. Pure urine is a bit more, um, easy to come by.

Have you ever heard of free speech? It’s that thing that would allow you to put up a poster of, oh I don’t know, your favorite sci-fi character accompanied by a particular quote he once said that you quite enjoy. You’d certainly be allowed to put up that kind of poster, right? Well, University of Wisconsin-Stout theater professor James Miller wasn’t allowed to put up the poster of Captain Malcom Reynolds accompanied by a particular quote he fancied (seen to the left), and was actually threatened with criminal charges by the campus police because of the poster and quote.

UWS Chief of Police Lisa Walter noticed the initial Firefly poster, took it down, and left Miller an email over the weekend stating, “it is unacceptable to have postings such as this that refer to killing.” Miller responded by telling Walter to respect liberty and to respect his first amendment rights. Walter responded to that by claiming that the poster can be interpreted as a threat by others, or could make people who view the poster believe that Miller could carry out a threat similar to the one in the quote. Walter then informed Miller than if he chose to repost the poster, he could face charges of disorderly conduct.

Apparently filmmakers really love to shoot characters walking forward, their back to the audience, because YouTube user Editcadet1 has cut together several dozen in this impressive supercut. What’s more, the creator also set it to the toe-tapping tune of Edwin Starr, which certainly helps its watchability.

Of course, the best part of these supercuts is trying to pick out all the movies. I spotted some notable Kubrick films and a smattering of Coen Brothers pictures in there. Did your favorite flick make the cut?

(via Videogum)

New anti-microbial technology, invented by Jason Locklin of the University of Georgia, can be used to keep clothes and other fabric based items permanently germ-free. As you may or may not know, this isn’t the first time technology like this has been invented, but Locklin’s iteration holds a few significant advantages over its predecessors. For instance, it can be applied easily via spray, it does not wash out, it does not require repeated applications to maintain effectiveness and, perhaps most importantly, it does not have to be applied during the manufacturing process like other similar technologies, so it will be effective when applied at any point during the shirt, pair of pants, or jockstrap’s life-cycle.

Of course, it’s a little bit of a logical jump to go from “germ-free” to “clean,” and the fact they’re testing this stuff in the wash probably means that it’s not going to put Maytag out of business any time soon. A germ-fee patch of dried mustard is still a patch of dried mustard after all. Still, some of the germs it is able to stop include the ones that cause stains and, more importantly, odors, so it may provide a better alternative to just turning your boxers inside out. Wonderful domestic uses aside, the technology is being considered most seriously for nobler pursuits, like keeping hospital linens uncontaminated and use in packaging of food and medical supplies. Nonetheless, I pine for the day that I can say “I’ll be right back, I’m going out to the store for a can of laundry,” or however people will say that in the future.

(via Science Daily)

Fabrice Bellard created a PC emulator written in pure JavaScript (using Typed Arrays) that runs Linux. Why? “For fun,” of course, and because Bellard claims “newer Javascript Engines are fast enough to do complicated things.” Bellard suggests a few uses of the emulator could be to benchmark JavaScript engines, use it for client side processing using an x86 library (Bellard suggests for cryptographic purposes), and a more advanced version would allow people to use it for running old DOS PC software, which would allow people to diverge from having to use resource-intensive DOS emulators like DOSBox to play old PC games.

For more detailed information on the emulator, check out the accompanying technical notes. For a little background on Fabrice Bellard, check out this article and find out why this guy is a computing genius.

(via Hacker News, Laurie Voss)