… iPod Royalty (or, iPod on the Thrown), How ‘Blade Runner’ is Connected to Vintage Apple Macintosh and the Super Bowl, and much more!

Celebrate the PI-ous, the Devout Mathematician
First, we’d like to congratulate Gaurav Raja, who succeeded in setting the North American record for reciting digits of pi. The 15-year-old student on Monday recited 10,980 digits, breaking the North American and U.S. record of 10,625, which had stood for 27 years.

During an after-school session, the high school junior recited about two numbers per second for one hour, 14 minutes and 28 seconds, reports The Washington Post. The achievement ranks him ninth in the world. The world record is 42,195.

Due to recent reader feedback regarding the current state of poor prioritizing of teaching principles (not principals) — the lack of inspirational teachers and guidance counselors — we’re inclined to note that the impetus for Raja’s attempt came from his math and computer science teacher, Linda Gooding. She asked her students to memorize about 40 digits of pi, an infinite number representing the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter.

So here’s to you, too, Ms. Gooding.

We’d Like Also to Congratulate LED Shuji
An engineer was chosen from among 109 nominations from 32 countries to win this year’s $1.2 million Millennium Technology Prize for his inventions in light and laser technology, reports The Associated Press.

Shuji Nakamura, now a 52-year-old professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, developed the blue light-emitting diode, or LED, widely used in traffic signals, illumination and for storing information onto optical disks.

Nakamura’s inventions have led to an efficient light source that has a 50x greater life span than traditional light bulbs, or incandescent light. Nakamura’s invention may help replace the traditional light bulb, as his method efficiently produces light from electricity without creating heat. The invention of a blue laser also can kill bacteria in water, benefiting developing countries via water purification.

If Nakamura’s name sounds familiar, it is because he and his former employer Nichia Corp. recently reached an $8 million settlement in a high-profile dispute over a lighting-technology patent. The case came to symbolize “the struggle of the individual worker against companies over intellectual property in Japan, a nation where corporate devotion has been the rule.”

Scientists Work with Stem Cells to Enable Constant Consumption
Scientists at the University of Washington say they are learning how to repair damaged human livers with stem cells, reports a paper published earlier this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work could lead to methods for repairing livers badly damaged by alcoholism, hepatitis and drug overdoses. Says AP:

For the first time, a team of UW researchers, led by [chairman of the university's pathology department, Nelson] Fausto, isolated liver stem cells from human fetuses. The researchers grew them in the laboratory for months and infused them in laboratory mice, where they replaced thousands of dead liver cells. The technique uses stem cells from aborted fetuses. So money for the research isn’t covered by the ban on federal funding for work using stem cells taken from embryos.

Stephen Hawking to Pen Another Unread Bestseller Children’s Book
Physicist Stephen Hawking and his daughter, Lucy, are going to write a science book for children. The book will be “a bit like Harry Potter” but without the magic.

They aim to explain theoretical physics in an accessible way to youngsters, BBC reports.

Professor Hawking’s bestseller “A Brief History of Time” (which has sold more than 10 million copies since it was first published in 1988) attempted to simplify cosmology, the Big Bang and black holes.

Scientists Recreate Evolution of Butterfly Species
The Independent reports that British and American researchers have recreated a species of butterfly in an experiment that “may have captured the real evolutionary steps leading to the formation of a new breed of animal.”

The experimental species was produced from two different types of butterfly that had been interbred to produce a fertile hybrid. The key finding from the experiment was that the hybrid offspring preferred to mate among themselves rather than breed with butterflies belonging their parental types.

This may be related to the wing patterns in a group of butterflies that are important in warning away predators. Wing coloration is so finely tuned that even slight deviations in colors or patterns produce confusing signals that could result in greater predation. Butterflies tend to choose partners that look like themselves, as they are attracted to others with wing patterns similar to their own.

The researchers say that this is probably how the brightly colored Heliconius heurippa — a wild South American species — first came about as a distinct entity thousands of years ago.

Flying Bots, Ground-Based Bots Find Orange Boxes
A team of autonomous robots, both flying and ground-based, have successfully cooperated to search for and locate orange-box targets in the streets of an urban warfare training ground. The system could help in search and rescue efforts and military operations — and even has the potential to include humans in the team, reports New Scientist.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania tested their system of team-working bots at a realistic urban warfare training ground at the U.S. Army’s Fort Benning base. They hid bright orange boxes in the streets between buildings. An autonomous robot aircraft with a wingspan of 2.5 meters, as well as four autonomous ground vehicles in the form of modified model monster trucks, called Clodbusters, then set out to pinpoint the boxes’ locations.

Both types of bot carried GPS sensors and looked for the targets using color video cameras. The Clodbusters used stereo cameras to judge distance, while the plane used a single camera. The robo-team members stay in touch via radio or Wi-Fi.

Your Wristwatch’s Connected to Your…Bluetooth/Your Bluetooth’s Connected to Your…Cell Phone/ Your Cell Phone’s Connected to Your…Wristwatch
Also in its latest issue, New Scientist asks:

Do you ever find yourself missing calls because your cell phone is out of earshot at the bottom of your bag? Wristwatches to be launched next month by Citizen Watch in Japan could help. The watches, which connect to a cell phone via a Bluetooth link, will alert the wearer when their phone receives a call or text message.

(From issue 2556 of New Scientist magazine, 17 June 2006)

Tunes at the Toilet
Sure, the iPod has a vast selection of add-ons, plug-ins and accessories. But an iPod toilet-paper dispenser?

Me thinks we’ve gone too far here, folks.

Speaking of toilet entertainment…

Beautiful Game Gets Dirty
OK, this is an older item, yet it is completely apt with the World Cup in full effect.

In Brazil bars, they have urinal soccer.

. . .

Oh, you wanted an explanation? Alrighty.

In Sao Paulo, miniature football soccer goals were placed on green urinal deodorizer blocks in several pubs. Dangling from the mini-goal’s crossbar, or placed in front of the goal, is a moth ball.

The sign above the urinal says: “Soccer is good everywhere, but it is much better on ESPN.”

Wee Goals — ahem ::taps microphone:: is this thing on? — Wee Goals can be purchased here.

And speaking of the World Cup. . .

A Big Message from Small Cars to Becks & the Rest
The AutoMotoPortal blog reports workers at the Toyota Burnaston factory in Derbyshire, UK, have made a flag from cars.

A team of 40 yard drivers and workshop technicians spent two 12-hour shifts reversing, turning and parking 400 Toyota Yaris cars into a giant St. George’s Cross. The flag, which measures 80m by 40m, is a big message to England’s World Cup team from the 4,350 workers at the plant. The flag can be seen from 1,000 ft. in the air and from miles around.

One Degree of Separation: Blade Runner and Vintage Apple Macintosh
Finally, as we look toward the release date of the final version of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Blade Runner (one of the first movies to appear on DVD, in 1997 and thus before optimal formatting standards had been established), we look back at Apple’s infamous 1984 ad that introduced the world to the company’s Macintosh. The commercial, directed by Scott immediately after his Blade Runner feature, premiered in the third quarter of the 1984 Super Bowl and has never run since. Yet few commercials have ever been more influential. Advertising Age named it the 1980s’ “Commercial of the Decade.” Take a look.

Cheers.