Hasta La Gadget!

I love sushi. Not only does it taste good, it’s actually one of the more healthy things you can put in your body. I really should eat more of the stuff. But I have a thing about only eating it when it’s freshly made in a restaurant. I never buy the pre-made rolls in the grocery – and definitely don’t possess the knife skills to make my own. But maybe owning this sushi plate would inspire me to eat sushi at home more often.

The ceramic shark sushi plate is handmade by Avigayil of Avi Ceramics, and it’s the perfect way to eat your sushi – assuming you don’t mind fighting a great white for each tasty morsel of raw fish and rice, as you dip it into the beast’s mouth to get some soy sauce.

So if you’re a sushi loving marine biologist, you can order one for yourself for $70(USD) plus shipping by following the instructions over on DeviantArt.

OK, so maybe ‘underwater gliding’ is the technical term, but to me, it looks like this robot fish is swimming. As Grace (short for Gliding Robot ACE), the robot fish glides through the water, it strives to conserve energy.

Developed by Associate Professor Xiaobo Tan and a team of engineers at Michigan State University, Grace can flap its tail to swim, but this could deplete its batteries in a few hours. To increase travel time, Grace relies on pumping water out of its body, as well as rhythmically moving its battery to control its direction.

There are apparently plenty of underwater gliders already in the oceans, but this robotic fish is about a tenth of their size and weight, and it also has an energetic swimming mode. It’s hoped that robots such as these can help monitor the quality of our seas. On its maiden voyage, Grace’s crude oil sensor was able to detect increased oil levels in the Kalamazoo River, presumably linked to a spill back in 2010.

[via New Scientist]

The card game “Go Fish” isn’t named that way because it has anything to do with fish. Its name is inspired by the act of “fishing” another card out of the pile when the other player doesn’t have the card you’re looking for. But in Iceland, Go Fish is literally about fish – at least if you buy this deck.

Artist Stefán Pétur Sólveigarson created this quirky deck of cards that’s been covered with images of a diverse range of aquatic species. And the cards don’t just teach you to identify the fish, it teaches you how to prepare and cook them. You know the old saying “give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day; teach him to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime?” That’s what these cards are all about – or at least teaching him how to cook fish.

You can reel in a deck of these literal Go Fish cards over at the Reykjavik Corner Store for $14.90(USD).

Halt, citizen! Put the goldfish down. You cannot take care of it, and it will not fill the hole in your heart that your ex punched through when she left. But if you already bought an aquarium, consider filling it with Robo Fish. Lifelike swimming is its prime directive.

Made by Takara Tomy, Robo Fish can move up and down randomly and at times even act like it’s foraging for food. It uses two LR44 watch batteries to power its waggling tail. Here’s a video uploaded by YouTuber Brandon Avery:

They’re not as lifelike as this one, but they’re good enough as toys. Or not. Some of the customer reviews on Amazon Japan – where Robo Fish can be ordered for￥2,980 (~$38 USD) each – say that the toy drains its batteries in just 2 hours. So maybe it really is looking for sustenance.

[via Boing Boing]

Worried about your schoolyard chums pinching your colored pencils (you know, those pre-touchscreen graphite writing implements) from your desk? By stashing them in a dead gutted mackerel you’re all but guaranteed no one’s going to lay a finger on them. And probably guaranteed a trip to the principal’s office too. More »