It will huff, and puff, and blow the house in -- but only for research purposes. Wind engineers just unveiled the world's largest portable hurricane wind and rain simulator. Civil and coastal engineers plan to use the simulator to blast vacant homes with winds of up to 130 mph -- Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale -- and high-pressure water jets that mimic wind-driven torrential rain.

Anthropologists have found a previously unknown tomb in Copán, Honduras, dating back to the 7th century A.D. that contained the skeleton of an elite member of ancient Maya society in the city. The unusual characteristics of the tomb's construction, the human remains, and the artifacts found near the body, according to Maca, paint a picture of an urban state that was more politically complex and culturally diverse than was previously thought.

Scientists have developed a new tool in the battle against a potential biological weapon, Lassa fever, which kills several thousand people each year and leaves thousands more with disabilities such as deafness and liver damage. Scientists now describe the development of a new animal model, the marmoset monkey, for use in Lassa fever research. The marmoset is a small primate that weighs about one pound when fully grown, but it has many genetic and physiological similarities to humans.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

It's not like the Bluetooth GPS receiver market really needed another combatant, but for those who prefer carrying as much as of their life as possible on a key ring, this one's for you. Coming in at a minuscule 1.54- x 1.3- x 0.79-inches in size, this SiRF Star III-equipped device can connect simultaneously to up to 20 satellite channels, operate for ten hours on a single charge, sports a tracking sensitivity of 159 dBm, supports an external antenna, and purportedly plays nice with your BT-enabled device from up to ten meters away thanks to Bluetooth 2.0. Charging is handled by the included cigarette adapter or USB charger, and while we wouldn't be keen on losing a $99.99 receiver right along with our keys, this should prove quite convenient if you're the organized type.

[Via NaviGadget]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Robots

In what is surely the opening salvo of the robot insurrection, a 45-year old Danish municipal worker was tragically killed by a robotic industrial lawnmower this afternoon, after the unit tumbled off a slope and onto his head. Although we've seen quite a few robotic lawnmowers, we're not too familiar with the RC-controlled Dvorak Spider 01 unit the man was using, so we can't tell if the accident was simply user error or something far more insidious, like, say, the dawning of a new intelligence determined to enslave all humanity. Either way, we're glad we live in a city and not the deadly robot battlefields known as "the suburbs."

Continue reading Robot lawnmower kills Danish man, begins resistance

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Sound, not Johnny Cash, responsible

Scientists have proposed a new mechanism to explain the so-called ring of fire that is visible around the sun during a full solar eclipse.

Grand jury indictments

A 27-year-old man, dubbed the Spam King by investigators, has been arrested in Seattle where he has been indicted on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, fraud in connection with electronic mail, and money laundering.

Oh, and you can access YouTube on it too

Apple, it seems, is hell bent on making this new foray a success and consequently has announced a build-to-order 160GB version - four times the capacity of the existing version that soon-to-be-very-cross customers have forked out for up until now.