Hasta La Gadget!

If you love stuff that looks like it came from another celestial body, then you’ll be over the moon with the Luna iPhone skin. If they look particularly moony to you, then its designers were able to have it manufactured well then, because that’s what inspired its creation. The moon, I mean.

This unusual iPhone skin was designed by Korean-based studio Posh Craft and Realize. Few materials can replicate the look and feel of the moon. One of these is concrete – and that’s exactly what they used for the Luna case.

The thin, but flexible concrete shell is pockmarked with miniature craters all over to mimic the moon’s surface, making each skin completely unique.

Industrial designers Jihye Kim and Changho Lee were the leaders of the design team that created the Luna. There’s no word yet on when you’ll be able to buy one for your iPhone.

[via Knstrct and Cool Material]

For the most part, we humans are better at things than we were thousands of years ago. But there are some things the ancients had down pat. Roman concrete, for instance, is just way better than anything we can whip up today. Finally, after some 2,000 years, modern-day scientists have figured it out. And it’s a secret worth knowing.

Read more…

When a bomb explodes, you can’t outmaneuver it; you probably can’t even take cover quickly enough to protect yourself. Instead, you have to hope that there’s something—anything—already in the way that can shield you from the blast. Here are five of the best future bomb-proof materials that could end up saving lives in our increasingly uncertain future. More »

City Rain is a glass with a built-in concrete coaster. You never have to worry about getting rings on your tables, because it automatically soaks up any moisture. More »

Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.

After a week where large numbers of people found themselves at the mercy of mother nature, many will be reminded just how vulnerable we really can be at times. That said, science still provides us with a pretty big stick to whack many other problems with. After the break we look at how crumbling buildings could soon be self-healing, why some UK-based scientists think they are one step closer to answering the “is light made of waves or particles” quandary, and NASA reveals its latest results in the hunt for martian methane. Oh, and there’s some zombie animals too. This is alt-week.

Continue reading Alt-week 11.03.12: zombie animals, martian methane and self healing buildings

Filed under: Science, Alt

Alt-week 11.03.12: zombie animals, martian methane and self healing buildings originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Nov 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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