…This Week in History: Robots and Canned Beer, Meatlifting and Retailers, No Green Card = No Free Car, Study Says “Downsizing Has Negative Effects,” and Test Your Knowledge of Roman, Victorian and Modern Engineering Feats!

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This Week in History, Pt. I
A new play premieres at the National Theater in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia. R.U.R, (which stands for Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Karel Capek, marks the first use of the word “robot” to describe an artificial person. Capek invented the term, basing it on the Czech word for “forced labor.” The word “robot” did not enter the English language until 1923.

(via Wired)

This Week in History, Pt. II
This week in 1935, canned beer made its debut. By the late 19th century, cans were instrumental in the mass distribution of foodstuffs, notes The History Channel, but it wasn’t until 1909 that the American Can Company made its first attempts to can beer. Unsuccessful, it had to wait until after Prohibition in the United States before it tried again. In 1933, after two years’ of research, American Can developed a can that was pressurized and had a special coating to prevent the fizzy beer from chemically reacting with the tin.

In partnership with American Can, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production.

NYSE Hybrid Trading
The New York Stock Exchange has put the finishing touches on its part-electronic, part-human-run hybrid trading system. On Wednesday, the NYSE completed the most crucial phase of its plan to have its 3,618 securities trade almost exclusively electronically, allowing the stock market to be more competitive with speedier service.

Under the hybrid market system, stocks will trade electronically most of the time, especially the biggest, most easy-to-trade stocks. The system will kick to a floor trader at the request of the client, or during high volatility in the particular stock that would require a trader to step in to facilitate trading.

8 Technologies to Save the World
“These futuristic projects promise to make the world greener, while making entrepreneurs some green.”

1. Home Hydrogen Fueling Station

2. Environmental Sensor Networks

3. Toxin-Eating Trees

4. Nuclear Waste Neutralizer

5. Autonomous Ocean Robots

6. Sonic Water Purifier

7. Endangered-Species Tracker

8. The Interactive, Renewable Smart Power Grid

(via Business 2.0, with pics)

—–Do you know which dictator ordered the world’s first motorway network to be built in the 1930s? Tiscali Europa has a cool little quiz on Roman, Victorian and modern engineering wonders. Check it out: Engineering Feats.—–

Work from Bed Ergonomically
The Ergopod 500, says Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing, “is a clever system for supporting a PC, mouse, keyboard and work areas, intended for use by heavy computer users, particularly those with special physical needs.” One of its many adjustable modes is a “work supine” and “work in bed” version that gives you everything you need in easy reach from the comfort of your own bed.

This means that if you’re anything like me, your bed rather than your desk will be covered in print-outs, publications and myriad other forms of research and documents. Roll out of bed with brand-new paper cuts.

Another Lonely Creative Invention
The following patent — # 7114465 — was issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Oct. 3, 2006.

Pet Operated Ball Thrower
“It is an object of the present invention to provide a ball tossing device that can be wholly operated by a pet without human intervention or human presence.”

Didn’t See Those Results Coming
In a study from what we at IMT call The Global Money- & Time-Wasting Association of Painful Obviousness, researchers discovered that company downsizing often negatively affects people.

Specifically, men who lost their jobs were most at risk of getting a prescription for a psychotropic drug. Compared with men who worked for units with no layoffs, these men were 64 percent more likely to be given a prescription for one of these drugs, the researchers found. Men who kept their job after downsizing are 50 percent more likely to be prescribed psychotropic drugs after the downsizing occurs.

One expert believes the findings confirm that layoffs affect everyone in the workplace.

Once again, a study whose results boggle the mind.

Drop That Tenderloin!
Apparently, meatlifting is a grave problem for food retailers, reports Slate. According to the Food Marketing Institute, meat was the most shoplifted item in America’s grocery stores in 2005. While theft of “Health and Beauty” items are usually the most stolen category, the category was surpassed last year only by “Meat and Analgesics.”

Drop that ‘Vette!
Finally, a Chicago radio station has withheld the sports car that a woman won in a raffle because she is an undocumented resident, reports The Chicago Sun-Times. What is worse, the woman says, is that the station’s attorney threatened to alert authorities of her immigration status once he learned she intended to take her battle to court.

Let the flame war begin!

Cheers.