Hasta La Gadget!

If you’ve played any of the Mass Effect games, then you’re familiar with the series’ Medi-gel. It’s a potent salve that instantly cures wounds and restores health, regardless of the source of the damage. It can even be administered remotely! It does have one crucial flaw: it’s not real. But two college students from NYU-Poly have invented something similar to this miraculous substance.

The product is called Veti-gel, a plant-based gel that can stop bleeding and hasten blood clotting, supposedly regardless of the size of the wound. It was invented by Joe Landolina and Kenny Mai, two junior college students at New York University. In fact, in 2011 Landolina and Mai were still calling their invention Medi-gel. I don’t know why they changed it though.

Tech News Daily spoke with Landolina and reports that the gel “jump-starts the clotting and healing process so quickly that even wounds to internal organs or major arteries are able to close up instantaneously.” Landolina was even quoted as saying, “One of my other colleagues … he went to a bonfire. One of his friends fell into the fire and got second-degree burns. He put the gel on, and the next day is [sic] was healed[.]“

Apparently the gel’s plant-based polymers turn themselves into a replica of an animal tissue component known as the Extracellular Matrix or ECM. The ECM has many functions, one of which is related to healing wounds. Once applied, Veti-gel forms a tight seal around the wound and helps with clotting and healing. In the short video below, Veti-gel is applied on a 3″ incision is made on a piece of raw pork loin that’s been pumped full of blood. Aside from being very gross, the video also shows how fast the gel does its job.

Because we live in an amazing world, it doesn’t surprise me that there are already substances similar to Veti-gel. One is called QuikClot and the other is called Floseal. But according to Tech News Daily QuikClot requires that you apply pressure over the wound for several minutes, whereas Veti-gel can fly solo. Floseal on the other hand is partly made from bovine gelatin. Veti-gel is made from plants, which are not as adorable as cows and oxen and thus can be harvested without remorse. Just kidding. Kind of.

But don’t be reckless when you’re assaulting the Reapers just yet because Veti-gel is still in development. Also because there are no Reapers. Landolina and Mai have started a company called Suneris to further work on and market their invention. Maybe these geniuses can make the Omni-tool real as well.

[via Tech News Daily, NYU-Poly (1), (2) & Suneris via Kotaku]

Fragrance company Demeter makes the most of what was relatively a small niche of specialized fragrances. By specialized, we mean that they shy away from making the typical floral and musk-scented perfumes that you normally find in stores. Instead, they make perfumes with the weirdest and most atrocious scents.

Their latest offerings are these zombie scented perfumes for men and women.

The Zombie for Him fragrance is formulated with the scent of dried leaves, mushrooms, mildew, moss, and earth. In short, you’ll smell like a decomposing corpse once you spray this on. Zombie for Her is a “A slightly lighter version of the Men’s fragrance with a touch of Dregs from the bottom of the wine barrel for that feminine touch.”

A 1 oz. cologne spray sells for $20(USD), while the 4 oz. bottle sells for $39.50. Since they’re only going to be available through April 30, you might want to stock up for the zombie apocalypse. Or you might just save yourself a few bucks and just roll around in your front lawn instead. Pat the dirt away and voila – instant zombie-like scent.

[via Refinery29]

As if the facehugger from Alien wasn’t creepy enough, one artist has decided to go out and make himself a Facehugger skeleton. But this thing isn’t just a sculpture, it’s made from actual animal bones.

Artist Tim Prince of Forgotten Boneyard created this Alien-inspired piece entitled Parasitoid using the bones of a box turtle, mink, wild turkey, coyote, skunk and a mouse. Eeesh. From all of the different genetic material this thing has assimilated, you might say it was equally inspired by The Thing.

If you’re into freaking people out, you can put this creeptastic thing in your home for $1000(USD). Me? I’d rather sleep at night and not worry about this thing jamming its proboscis down my throat so it can implant an alien embryo in my stomach.

3D printing technology is amazing. People are already using 3D printers to make cookie cutters, gadgets, replacement parts, toys and even robots. Now they’re moving forward into the realm of fashion by printing full-length dresses.

Here’s burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese sporting a custom and truly one-of-a-kind 3D-printed creation.

The dress was a product of a collaboration between designer Michael Schmidt and architect Francis Bitonti. They didn’t just pull this sexy number out of their head, because it’s actually based on the Fibonacci sequence.

When they were ready with their design, they sent it off to 3D-printing service Shapeways, who printed out the gown’s seventeen meshed pieces. They assembled the parts to form one dress and voila – instant sexiness.

Shapeways designer Duann Scott had this to say about the role of 3D printing in fashion: “Traditionally, all garments are either a weave or a stitch. And with 3-D printing, we can … introduce something completely different. So we can grow designs rather than just using something that’s centuries-old technology. It’s a whole way to move forward in fashion and clothing and textiles.”

Right-o!

[via designboom and Wired via Dvice]

Some interests are pretty morbid. For instance, I’ve always wondered just what kind of person would want to become a coroner or an undertaker. It’s just weird to me. The same thing applies to people who collect bugs and display them. Seems pretty gruesome to me. I’m just not that fascinated with dead things. However, dead bugs in LEGO? Yeah, I can see how that could be neat.

Insect fans are about to have their bug-loving nerd minds blown by these “taxidermied” LEGO insects. Each detailed LEGO insect was hand-made by Siercon and Coral and put into shadow box insect display cases.

Now this is insect taxidermy that I wholeheartedly approve of.

Head over to flickr to see the entire collection of LEGO creepy crawlies.

[via IT LEGO via Obvious Winner]