GoldenEye 007 is certainly a fun way to waste your childhood...but is it art? According to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, yes. The game was one of 80 selected for an upcoming exhibit, The Art of Video Games, and the venerable museum drew on fan expertise, using online voting to winnow the field of 240 nominees. The selections span the last four decades (!) of gaming, from the days of the Atari VCS and ColecoVision all the way to today's modern time-sinks like Portal and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The exhibit won't open until next spring, but in the meantime check out the source link to argue about who got left out.
As you may know, crafting a katana is a delicate process that involves carefully constructing a razor-sharp high-carbon edge around a soft shock-absorbent core. One day though, smiths and forging fires could be replaced by electrode-wielding mad-scientists, with the technology to selectively harden and soften metal at will. At least that's what we envisioned when we read about Jörg Weißmüller's breakthrough research in the field of nanomaterials. The German scientist discovered that by placing precious metals in acid he could create tiny ducts through corrosion. Once those channels are flooded with a conductive liquid, electrical currents can be used to harden the material and, if you change your mind about the brittle results, the effect can easily be reversed to make it soft again. The tech could eventually lead to self-healing vehicle armor or scratch-resistant cellphones -- but, really, we just want to zap our way to a high-quality samurai sword. Physorg
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