What ‘Brain Food’ Actually Does for Your Brain [Health]:

You should eat salmon before a test, berries to prevent Alzheimer’s, or a vitamin supplement to increase your memory. You’ve heard the term “brain foods” since you were a kid, but how much do you really know about them? More importantly, is there really a way to boost your brain power just be eating a certain type of diet? We talked with two experts to unravel the myths and unpack the facts about how much food can really impact your brain. More »

Why Bringing in a Third Party is the Best Way to Reach a Fair Agreement [Negotiation]:

Compromise is hard whether it’s something as complicated as a salary or as trivial as who does the dishes on Tuesday night. The reason is that we’re all pretty certain we’re right and Scientific American recommends using that righteousness, aka the self-serving bias, to reach a fair compromise by adding in a third party. More »

On the history of books bound in human flesh:

From “the chirurgeon’s apprentice,” a fascinating and squick-inducing blog/website devoted to chronicling “the horrors of pre-anaesthetic surgery,” an entry about the history of books bound in tanned human skin. Snip from details about the image shown above:

And then there were books which claimed to be made from the human flesh but were, in fact, not. One example comes from the Wellcome Collection in London [left]. It is a curious little notebook which professes to be ‘made of Tanned skin of the Negro whose Execution caused the War of Independence’. Presumably, this refers to Crispus Attucks, a dockworker of Wampanoag who was the first person killed by the British during the Boston Massacre. Immediately following his death, Attucks was held up as an American martyr. As a consequence of its alleged origins, this notebook has become a symbol of the American Revolution.

More. And if you enjoy tweets about 17th-century surgery, you’ll want to follow Lindsey Fitzharris, the medical historian behind the “Chirurgeon’s Apprentice” website. (via Vaughan Bell)

Algorithms for smart sand that sculpts itself:

Above is an example a “smart pebble,” outfitted with a microprocessor and magnets, that MIT researchers are using to prototype algorithms for “smart sand” that could form into any shape. Sure, it’s early days. But still! Smart sand! From MIT:

At the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in May — the world’s premier robotics conference — (MIT’s Distributed Robotics Laboratory) researchers will present a paper describing algorithms that could enable such “smart sand.” They also describe experiments in which they tested the algorithms on somewhat larger particles — cubes about 10 millimeters to an edge, with rudimentary microprocessors inside and very unusual magnets on four of their sides.
Unlike many other approaches to reconfigurable robots, smart sand uses a subtractive method, akin to stone carving, rather than an additive method, akin to snapping LEGO blocks together. A heap of smart sand would be analogous to the rough block of stone that a sculptor begins with. The individual grains would pass messages back and forth and selectively attach to each other to form a three-dimensional object; the grains not necessary to build that object would simply fall away. When the object had served its purpose, it would be returned to the heap. Its constituent grains would detach from each other, becoming free to participate in the formation of a new shape.

“Self-sculpting sand“

Projected tiger has golden 2D run through Paris:
Click here to view the embedded video.

via Laughing Squid

Spiders made from TSA-confiscated scissors:

Sculptor Christopher Locke makes the most amazing spiders out of scissors — but not just any scissors. Scissors that the TSA confiscated and auctioned off.

Although the TSA website says scissors with blades less than four inches are allowed on airplanes, the individual officers conducting the screening have the authority to confiscate anything they think could be used as a weapon. As a result, hundreds of pairs of scissors are confiscated daily at American airports.

Scissor Spiders (via Colossal)

Building spilling books:

“Biografias,” an installation by Alicia Martin at Casa de America, Madrid. “5,000 Books Pour Out of a Building in Spain” (via Imaginary Foundation)

3D printed shoes:

The Smithsonian’s Design Decoded blog reports on the latest developments in 3D printed footwear, including the fashion designers and students who are experimenting with printing out shoes using cheap materials that only last for “one lap down a runway.” As Andrew writes on the Makerbot blog, “the artist worked with what was available to push the limits of the design, and the design will drive the demand for the needed materials. This is truly a case where life will catch up to imitate the art.” Sarah C. Rich expands:

As materials science advances, injection molding may give way to 3D printing—a strategy that’s widely used in design studios for pushing formal boundaries, but as yet not ubiquitous on the footwear market. Most polymers used in 3D printers are too hard and inflexible to make a comfortable shoe, although fashion students and designers have not been deterred from producing them, if only for one lap down a runway. The existing concepts invariably look rather sci-fi, with web-like lines that wrap the foot.

Swedish designer Naim Josefi envisions a consumer environment in which a shopper’s foot would be scanned in-store, and a shoe printed on demand that perfectly fit the wearer’s anatomy. Brazilian designer Andreia Chaves’s Invisible Shoe pairs a common leather pump with a 3D-printed cage-like bootie, while Dutch fashion designer Pauline van Dongen’s Morphogenesis shoe more closely resembles a platform wedge. And at the London College of Fashion, student Hoon Chung created a line of 3D printed shoes for a final project, which look perhaps the closest to contemporary styles, though the molded shapes betray a high-tech production method.

These Shoes are Made for Printing (via Makerbot blog)

(Image: Andreia Chaves’s Invisible Shoe)