These photographs show the development of a chicken from an egg. (Via Boing Boing.)

"Military Recruits Thousands More Warbots for New Unmanned Surge"

Triangle juggling. This also has the advantage that it could be performed in zero-G. (Via Cynical-C.)

Exploiting the Casimir effect for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

"8 Types Of Annoying People You'll Find Inside Starbucks". (Via Clicked.)

Terminator 6? "Christian Bale is to play rebel leader John Connor in three sequels to the Terminator franchise, its producers have revealed." (Via BBspot.)

Folding laptop.

Real-life epidemiology lessons from a virtual-world disease:

A fascinating - and completely accidental - case study occurred in 2005 within Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which at the time hosted some 6.5 million players of diverse age and background. Issues of race, gender, and seniority issues are built in, since the players are real people, and the world is highly social, with real-world factors such as transportation, working together, and friendships arising as a result of game mechanics and player groupings such as guilds.

One of the game's bosses infected players in his immediate vicinity with a disease called "Corrupted Blood," intended merely as a short-term, short-range annoyance - but afflicted players were able to teleport back to large population centers, effectively starting a quick-spreading epidemic, leaving central hubs littered with bones and covered in blood as players dropped dead left and right. Normal gameplay was massively disrupted.

Players panicked, both in the game and on message boards, wondering whether the outbreak was intentional or an accident. It mirrored real-world epidemics in numerous ways: it originated in a remote, uninhabited region and was carried by travelers to urban centers; hosts were both human and animal, such as with avian flu; it was spread by close spatial contact; and there were asymptomatic individuals - in this case, invulnerable NPCs.

...Interestingly, player behavior was closely aligned with real-world behavior in such situations. Those with healing capability volunteered their services in city centers. Lower-level characters who could not tangibly pitch in warned others away at city limits. Nervous players fled to areas known to be uninfected. Suspicion and fear was rampant over in-game communication, blogs, and email.

One trait was particularly enlightening: curiosity, something epidemiologists did not generally build into their models. Some players attempted to enter infected areas to witness the chaos, then rush out before contracting the disease themselves. This behavior has real-world parallels, particularly in the case of journalists, who must rush towards a problem to cover it, then rush back out.

(Via BBspot.)

Video of the day: "I Will Derive", to the tune of "I Will Survive". (Via Michael Williams.)

Impressive 3-dimensional spider tattoo. My wife's immediate reaction was, "Creepy! Eeek! Yuck! Gross!" (Via Look At This...)

Advances in artificial legs.

"Researchers have taken the first real-time images of a viral unit assembling inside a living cell."

Video of the day: "Through the Panama Canal in 75 Seconds".

The Panama Canal Authority website states, "The history of the construction of the Panama Canal is the saga of human ingenuity and courage: years of sacrifice, crushing defeat, and final victory. Many gave their life in the effort. Follow the story from the early days of the French construction period, to the completion by the United States, and into the present time."

More details can be found here. And of course there's a Wikipedia article.

(Via Joost Bonsen.)

"World's biggest drawing created with the help of GPS and DHL".

"Down on the server farm: The real-world implications of the rise of internet computing."

"Internet to run out of addresses 'within 3 years'":

As of this month 85 per cent of the 4.3 billion available Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which identify devices connected to the net, are already in use. Within three years they will all be used up, according to a report by the OECD. "The situation is critical for the future of the internet economy," it says.

The report urges governments and businesses to upgrade from the current version, IPv4, to IPv6, which effectively has an unlimited number of IP addresses. IPv6 has been available for more than a decade but service providers have been slow to adopt it.

The history and science of hangovers. I especially liked the bit on international terminology:

Some words for hangover, like ours, refer prosaically to the cause: the Egyptians say they are "still drunk," the Japanese "two days drunk," the Chinese "drunk overnight." The Swedes get "smacked from behind."

But it is in languages that describe the effects rather than the cause that we begin to see real poetic power. Salvadorans wake up "made of rubber," the French with a "wooden mouth" or a "hair ache." The Germans and the Dutch say they have a "tomcat," presumably wailing. The Poles, reportedly, experience a "howling of kittens." My favorites are the Danes, who get "carpenters in the forehead."

In keeping with the saying about the Eskimos' nine words for snow, the Ukrainians have several words for hangover.

(Via Cosmic Log.)

We may be living in doughnut-shaped universe (technically a 3-torus).

As Homer Simpson would say, "Doughnuts -- is there anything they can't do?..."

Delayed choice quantum experiment update. I must confess, I still don't quite understand the full significance and/or implications. Here's some background information from Wikipedia.

"Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?" (Via ALDaily.)