Johnny Chung Lee out of Carnegie Mellon University has discovered some features of the Wiimote and developed pertaining software that can further enhance user interactivity. One of them personally being my favorite of the three, allows a user to multi-touch interact with his/her desktop when projected onto practically any surface. And here's the kicker; this can be done at a MUCH more affordable price (not including the price of a projector if you don't already have one) when compared to the more expensive products of Microsoft's Surface and Apple's Multi-Touch products. His other projects Wiimote projects can be found here.

Charles Darwin married his first cousin.

Few people in Darwin's time were as aware as he was of the potential dangers of limiting a gene pool through inbreeding. The famed naturalist had 10 kids with his first cousin Emma, and when they became sick, he would worry that inbreeding was the source.

Marrying one's cousin was more common and more acceptable in Darwin's time than it is now. In fact, for wealthy families, one's cousin was long regarded as the perfect mate since such a union kept wealth in the family.

Even if they are stubborn, this is why I love the beagle breed of dogs. They're curious, intelligent, determined, and always seem to find a way.

Came across this video couple of days ago about a brain scientist by the name of Jill Bolte Taylor who got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness –- shut down one by one. An astonishing story.

The first industrial robot went to work at General Motors in 1961.

Named Unimate, GM put It to work in the spring of 1961 without fanfare – not because they were worried about an uproar over it one day taking the jobs away from many people, but because they were concerned it wouldn’t work out. Fortunately it did, of course, and today robotics is a multi-BILLION-dollar worldwide industry. The original Unimate is on display at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Since 1990, airplanes in North America have hit over 105,000 birds representing 447 species.

The National Wildlife Strike Database has recorded plane-to-bird impacts in the U.S. and Canada dating back to 1990. The majority of the time, the species of bird is unknown and listed either simply as "unknown" or by size: large, medium or small. In the cases where the species is known, the bird family victimized most often by planes is the gull. Ontario leads the count with 685 gull strikes, and in the U.S., it's New York [state], with 594 gulls.

This is a cool story. What this person did was tie a disposable camera to a public bench with a note attached encouraging strangers to use it to take a picture or two. When the camera's owner returned to retrieve the camera later that evening, he found that his little experiment worked! The entire film roll was used. All the photos can be viewed here.

Makes me want to try something like this out here on campus since there is a constant flow of traffic.