Results tagged “giftology” from 60 Second Science

We all had ourselves a big cry earlier this year as Pluto got demoted from its position as the ninth planet. Suddenly, the phrase "as far away as Pluto" lost its power, now that we were talking about a "dwarf planet." Noooooooooo!

But thanks to today's Giftology item, we don't have to let Pluto go gently into that unofficial, elliptical orbit night. The Pluto R.I.P. t-shirt both helps you maintain your sexy and gives a fond farewell to that frozen chunk of rock and ice we loved so. The science may say otherwise, but the little guy was always more than a wayward object from the Kuiper Belt to us. Tell the world and pour a forty for Pluto with this snazzy t-shirt.

(one more pic after the jump)

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Today's Giftology item is guaranteed to make you the most popular person ever at your local cafe, bookstore or street corner: The Wi-Fi Detector Shirt features an animated design on front with signal bars that actually glow blue as the signal strength increases. You'll be like the infallible Johnny Depp/Scarlett Johansson of horn-rimmed glassed-chicks/dudes everywhere you go!

The $29.99 shirt runs "for hours" on 3 AAA batteries and is machine washable, though you'll have to disassemble the glowing, animated decal, battery pack and all the other glitchy components. If you're contemplating wearing a Wi-Fi shirt, I think you can handle it.

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Everyone has that one super high-class, uppity, early-adopter friend who has the latest cool gadget before you do. He bought the world's fastest yacht before you did. His car runs on his own sense of self-satisfaction. You bought an iPhone? His was personally implanted into his frontal cortex by Steve Jobs and came preloaded with the finest escort services on five continents already on speed dial.

Today's Giftology item ensures that you get him something this year he can't possibly have: His very own robot sommelier! Scientists at Japan's NEC company and Mie University have garnered an entry into the 2008 Guinness Book of World Records by creating the world's first robot sommelier. The cute lil' robot "tastes" wine via an infrared sensor in its hand that can identify different types of wine by irradiating it at different wavelengths. The robot can identify types of wines, grape ingredients, and even the level of sweetness or dryness. It can do the same with fruits and cheese, making it an all-purpose garden-party robot.

(You're killing us softly with your song today, Japan).

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If you're like me, the advent of snow during the holidays brings snow, which then triggers the "extreme" response — extreme sledding, extreme groin skiing, and extreme avalanche backstroke. I've performed all of these activities without cranial protection, because I can't find a helmet that matches my high-fashion standards in headware. Now I can't count past ten. Luckily for you or your winter extremes-loving giftee, today's Giftology entry will keep their frontal cortex both stylish and protected.

Ribcaps have all the jam-banderiffic style of your regular woolen beanie, but with the added bonus of StructUre closed-cell foam, which upon impact with trees, the ground, or 5-year-olds who refuse to move out of the way, transforms from a flexible state to a semi-rigid or even fully rigid state to protect all the neurons in your shreddin' brain case. You'll need those for later, when you bake them out of existence with some really dank weed.

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Neuroscientist, neurotic or nerd — everyone's got a brain fanatic/fetishist in the family, and Giftology has got you covered with Brain-Mart.

What's Brain-Mart, you say? You shouldn't have to ask. It's like Wal-Mart...but for brains. Need a brain-shaped pencil top eraser? Brain-Mart. Gelatin brain molds of myriad sizes and flavors? Brain-Mart. Giant brain gummies? Brain-to-the-Mart. A hideous brain-print trucker hat? No, wait, I got this one — Brain-Mart.

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See that cute guy up there? He's our old friend Herpes — I know a few of you out there might have had a run-in with this lil' bugger in the recent past (one in four of you, actually). Now you can celebrate your outbreaks by cuddling up with your very own plush version of herpes simplex type 2, thanks to the dreamweavers at Giant Microbes!

In fact, they've got all the venereal diseases, plus other adorable plagues like the flu, the common cold, ebola, and yes, the black plague! All these lovely pathogens come at an affordable $7.95 — perfect stocking stuffers for the doctor, terminally ill person, or bacterially afflicted relative in your family.

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No, no you sickos -- today's Giftology item isn't the remains of Heidi Klum's pre-Victoria's Secret Television Special visit to the "secret doctor." But it is five pounds of luscious, anatomically correct replica fat made from pliable, long-lasting vinyl.

It's supposed to be for "educational" purposes, but it's got plenty of better uses. Could your significant other stand to lose a few? There's no stronger motivator than dropping this puppy on the plate the next time he/she asks for another slice of cake. How about a weak-stomached vegetarian friend? This'll keep them from keeping that tofu-seitan sandwich down -- all day long.

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I'm not going to name names or reasons, but we all know someone who needs to wipe their hard drive to a blinding sheen more often than not. Today's Giftology item is perfect for the covert agent, porn enthusiast or vengeful post-doc candidate who you've been entrusted to serve as Secret Santa. The Drive eRazer simply connects to an old hard drive and erases all the old files by writing a data pattern over the entire disc. The Pro version performs multiple passes while writing random characters over your leather fetish, nuclear proliferation or embarrassing first novel files.

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Today's Giftology recommendation will enable the recipient to travel...through TIME! OK, not really, but it'll remind you of a time when the plucky adventures of Marty McFly and the irascible Doc Brown made you believe it to be possible. Revisit that innocent, science-stupid time with this full-scale replica of the Flux Capacitor from Back to the Future. It features full lighting effects, adjustable power settings, hastily-pasted handmade labels, and 1.21 jigowatts of non-time-traveling power. All you'll need to do is find a refurbished DeLorean, and those are practically everywhere.

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Christmas. Kwanzaa. Hannukah. The holiday pressure is on, but this season, you can boost your cool-factor with Giftology. What's Giftology? It's a scientifically proven method to cut through all that religious ceremony and cultural hoo-dee-hoo to go directly toward what the holiday spirit really means: getting all sorts of sweet loot.

But we here at 60 Second Science realize you might be new to Giftology, which is why everyday from now until oh, say, the arbitrary date of Dec. 25th, we'll present a new item for your ultimate Giftology gift guide. Items range from unattainable tech awesomeness (personal hovercrafts, for instance) to nerdy tchotchkes with only a tenuous connection to the world of science (brain jello molds, anyone?). The point is, you'll have every gift idea you could possibly need for the particle physicist, amateur evo-devo enthusiast, nerd, geek or violent criminal genius in your family.

Today's entry: Uranium Ore!

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