Since my son started to drink gas, his IQ has dropped sharply and now he can't figure out simple addition and subtraction. Before that, he was a very smart boy, and he could even repair the television. But now he does not know the answer of 7 plus 17.

No kidding. The worrying thing is that it took a long time for the parents to realize that his son's habits could be bad for him. How long?

He began to drink gasoline five years ago, when we found he liked smelling lighter fuel.

Five years? FIVE FRAKING YEARS? According to the doctors at the Shanghai hospital where he's being treated "the gasoline contains a lot of lead, which can do harm to people's brains. To make thing even worse, the boy is in the physical development stage, and the lead has caused serious damage to his body." Apparently, the parents have been drinking kerosene for the longest time too.

Poor kid, seriously. I hope the parents get their ass in jail for incompetence. The only positive thing in this story: At least he wasn't tased. [Shangai Daily via slashfilm--Thanks GitEmSteveDave!]

The man pretty immediately went up in flames, and the officer, recognizing that a man becomes significantly less dangerous once he's on fire, went to the suspect's aid, patting him all over (and getting burned himself) to quell the flames. While the officer tried to help the flammable man, he was hit by rocks thrown by a young woman also on the scene, also presumably high or stupid or both. Both the man and woman, as well as two others, were charged with sniffing a prohibited substance, and the young woman was charged with throwing rocks at a policeman. [Daily Telegraph]

In truth, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company has teamed up with those E-Fuel guys we told you about. E-Fuel has developed a system/machine to turn simple sugar and yeast into alcohol and then ethanol. (Really, it's not so different from brewing beer.)

Sierra Nevada is installing an EFuel100 MicroFueler in-house to turn 1.6 million gallons of otherwise discarded yeast for brewing (yearly) into the source ingredients of what we're sure is a very, very tasty high grade ethanol gasoline. We can drink to that. (beer, not ethanol)

Needless to say, we're being more than a little hard on the BioBot. In reality, it's a geek-worthy device that can produce almost 20 gallons of diesel per cycle. But unless you work at a french fry factory and have a BS in biochemistry, it's probably worth leaving this method to the pros.

If you're still interested, the BioBot runs $5000 and is said to pay for itself in two years. [BioBot via New Launches]

The system takes feedstock (a combination of sugar and yeast) or discarded alcohol, and combines it with water to distill 100% pure ethanol. Turning sugar into gas may sound like the work of mad scientists, but according to CEO Tom Quinn, home ethanol production was advocated and used by Henry Ford when he created the Model T. I imagine that home-made ethanol wasn't as easy to make back then, because if it was, we probably wouldn't have switched to gasoline in the first place.

The MicroFueler produces ethanol using membrane distillation. Sugar, yeast and water are blended together to create the chemical reaction that produces ethanol. After two days, the fermented sugar water is turned into vapor, and the ethanol is separated from the water. By the end of the week, the MicroFueler reservoir will hold 35 gallons of pure ethanol, enough to fill at least two cars. This is a lot like Dean Kamen's water purifier, except in reverse. In fact, creator Floyd Butterfield says the water by-product is clean enough to drink.

The most astounding part is that a car doesn't require pure ethanol to run, due to its higher-than-gasoline octane content. E-Fuel says you can fill up your tank with 75% ethanol and 25% water and your car will run fine.

The price tag may seem steep, but federal, state and local tax credits can bring the price as low as $5000—average cost with credits is more like $7000. The creators say an average home will save around $4200 on gas each year, and the machine will pay for itself in about a year and a half.

That said, people have been doing this on their own for a while. Plans available online estimate a true DIY machine costs about $500 to build, but for those who don't want to run the risk of spontaneous combustion (like me), the MicroFueler seems like a wise alternative. [E-Fuel]

It's powered by gasoline and flint, which means you can actually fire "real" ammunition from its turret. $149 gets you the gun, and you'll have to buy separate flints and ammo for about $10 each. The thing also weighs 7 pounds, which means that in the worst case scenario when you run out of ammo you can just throw it at someone's face. [LighterSide via Nerd Approved]

With offerings like compressed natural gas and E85, Lewis feels like he's basically not throwing his money down a the petro-state rathole and since he's in California, he gets extra karma. The future is here. – John Biggs

Gas station looks at gas-free future [AP]