Urinal Games...

I know parents, who in their attempt to 'potty train' young boys, pour Cheerios into the toilet and tell the young lad "now try and sink them".

A more expensive version of this game has been produced by Yanko Designs (designed by Marcel Neundorfer) called the 'On Target' in which the 'participants' control the video game with... well... a stream of urine.

According to Yanko Designs the reason for doing this is the same as my friends when they use Cheerios at home with their young boys:

Recessed into a urinal is a pressure-sensitive display screen. When the guest uses it, he triggers an interactive game, producing images and sound. The reduced size of the target improves restroom hygiene and saves on cleanings costs - Yanko Designs

Note: Too bad Nintendo didn't invent this... they could have called the "Nintendo Wee".

Who cares about Fermilab? (Part II)

In an earlier post I pointed out that the entire computer industry owes its success to high energy physics (HEP); that medical imaging would not be where it is today without physics research done a few generations ago. In this second installment of "Who cares about Fermilab?" I raise awareness of research in retinal implants and track their development back to, you guessed it high energy physics.

In a 2007 article, written by Emily Singer, that appeared in the MIT Technology Review, she interviews Alan Litke, a physicist at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) who's applying his particle detector expertise to neurobiology in what is titled the Retinal Readout Project.

Litke and his collaborators modeled their [artificial retinal] chip after the silicon microchip detectors that line supercolliders to capture signs of elusive, high-energy, subatomic particles, such as the Higgs boson.

So once again I ask "Who cares about Fermilab?" The answer might just be we all do, or should, because we just never know what good may come from deep under the ground where particles collide at near light speed.