Frustrations of a 1980s Childhood Relieved?
Back in 1989, when Back to the Future II was released in theaters, kids charged straight to the stores in hopes of getting their hands on those incredible airborne hoverboards featured in the movie. Sadly, despite the name "Mattel" being printed on their sides in the movie, they were not real. (Cue the sad trombone sound.)

That makes this demonstration of a supposedly real-life hoverboard from French artist Nils Guadagnin long overdue (or 5 years early, if we're sticking to the 2015 timeline):

HOVERBOARD - NILS GUADAGNIN from nils guadagnin on Vimeo.

Star Eats Planet
A new instrument on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, recently determined that "the hottest known planet in the Milky Way galaxy" is "being eaten by its parent star," according to the space agency. "The planet may only have another 10 million years left before it is completely devoured."

Artist's concept of the exoplanet WASP-12b being eaten by its its sunlike star; Click image for larger view
Credit: NASA / European Space Agency / G. Bacon

Cigarette Butts into Steel
The trillions of cigarette butts discarded around the world each year may have a use after all, as researchers in China recently found a way to convert this type of litter into a strengthening agent for industrial steel.

In an effort to reduce the effects of toxins found in thrown-away cigarette butts, which kill a large number of fresh- and saltwater fish each year, Chinese scientists have identified nine chemicals that could be extracted from the butts through immersion in water, Reuters reports. These extracts were discovered to significantly improve the corrosion resistance of N80 steel, commonly used in the oil and gas industry.

"The results were pretty dramatic. In a near-boiling solution of 10 and 15 percent hydrochloric acid (HCl; same stuff as stomach acid), the cigarette-derived cocktail reduce[s] corrosion by between 90 and 94 percent," Discovery News explains.

According to the researchers' findings, published in the American Chemical Society's Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research journal, nearly 4.5 trillion discarded cigarette butts make their way into the environment each year. The newfound process for converting this type of trash into a bolstering agent for metal may improve recycling efforts and lower the impact of the butts.

Kermit on Sales and Cookie Monster on Tech
"Before Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, Jim Henson made short films for Big Blue," Technologizer says in a recent feature on an early collaboration between Henson and IBM.

"[I]n the late 1960s, before most people had ever seen a computer in person or could identify a Muppet on sight, the two teamed up when IBM contracted with Jim Henson for a series of short films designed to help its sales staff," the tech Web site explains.

Among the five videos complementing Technologizer's feature, one includes "an early version of Kermit the Frog, one of only two star Muppets at the time, attempting to deliver a long speech on sales success while intimidated by a gruesome monster."

The second short below "displays an ambivalent attitude towards technology, showing it as complicated, seemingly pointless and likely to self-destruct," Technologizer explains. "Not a message one would expect from IBM, but it shows that the company — despite its reputations as a pretty button-downed place — had a corporate ability to laugh at itself."

Enjoy:

Cheers.