The current design for the bicycle has held pretty steady for the last little bit: two wheels, a frame, a chain, gears and a pedal. It’s stayed that way because it’s a good design; why mess with it? For fun, that’s why. A few weeks ago we looked at the Fliz, a two-wheeled contraption that made you feel like you were flying, strapped into a harness. And today we bring news of the Bicymple, or as Josh Bechtel of Scalyfish Designs wants you to think of it: the bicycle, simplified. It features a direct drive system, which means that the pedals are on the back wheel, and you turn it directly. It’s a little bit like a unicycle, only there’s a second wheel and handlebars. The second wheel is in front and is joined to the propelling wheel by a simple metal arm that allows them to run in different tracks from each other. This means you can go forward, but place your directional wheel offset from where you’re sitting, making you look like you’re traveling sideways, even when you’re not. Crab-ridin’. It’s… a little convoluted to explain and better understood in video form. The point is that it looks kind of fun, if only a little dangerous. Still, that never stopped anyone before.
The Bicymple is just a working prototype at the moment and there’s no pricing or availability information. But there’s a considerable amount of interest, so you never know when this could turn into a reality.
Hit the jump for more pictures and that video.
[ Product Page ] VIA [ The Awesomer ]
Carrying a tent in a knapsack may seem very ‘outdoorsy’ when you’re packing for a camping trip at home but when you have to carry the heavy luggage through rough terrain and spend additional energy and time on setting it up in the woods, the idea doesn’t seem too terribly exciting. However, carrying a quick inflating tent doesn’t need to be such a chore and this new tent named the Hemiplanet Cave illustrates that perfectly. Featuring double layer air struts, the geodesic structure of the stable and robust air frame mimics the molecular structure of diamonds and keeps the tent sturdy and upright even in emergencies.
People who thought damaged heart muscles cannot be tuned up or rely on any other possibility may soon be coerced to alter their accustomed patterns of beliefs. In a medical breakthrough, some researchers from the Rambam Medical Center and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have astoundingly devised a new skin-cell technique that restores damaged heart muscles to generate beating heart cells.
According to US Department of Health 25.8 million people in US are afflicted with diabetes, a figure which comprises of 8.3 percent of total US population. Being a diabetic means dealing regularly with irritating needle pricks (from two to ten times a day) to determine sugar level in blood. Dr. Jun Hu, an associate professor of Chemistry at The University of Akron has a solution that might make life of diabetes patients easier. Dr. Jun has proposed contact lenses that would change their color to help you determine increased sugar level in body. What makes it possible is the fact that you can determine sugar level in blood by checking the sugar level of tears in the eyes.
Researchers have long been working to harness biological systems to use as highly reliable platforms for computing. Now, a team of bio-engineering scientists in the U.S. have demoed a method to utilize short sections of DNA as advanced rewritable data bits. Well, the new system makes use of a pair of proteins fine-tuned from viruses to flip the DNA bits. Indeed, it might leapfrog researchers’ efforts to exploit biological systems as a stable memory storage facility for computing.
Although regular visits to dialysis center swings on inevitability for patients, but it may rather sound quite inconvenient and uneasy for most. Probably that’s why, an ingenious team of four designers have devised a thoughtful and innovative system ‘Mobilysis’ for patients. The wearable yet compact device simply endeavors to simplify and ease the lifestyle of patients who do not have enough time to spend several hours three times a week at some dialysis center.
The overhead aircraft support provides cover and support to the war fighters who participate in a battle from ground. The support is beneficial and sometimes can be crucial in deciding the fate of the war. When the clouds cover the sky, some capabilities get lost as the ground views of the aircraft gets hindered During the support missions the airborne weapon systems use the electro-optic or the EO sensors but are not able to see through clouds.
