Minute vibrations are keeping you from enjoying your home audio at its full potential. That lost fidelity can be reclaimed, however, with some help from the visionaries at Moon Audio. By using high powered magnets to float your stereo on a thin bed of air, their Zero Gravity shelf will "improve the sound of almost any component." Except for maybe VCRs.

The price tag on the Zero Gravity is $500, which, Moon Audio will have you know, is quite cheap for this sort of thing. So if in a moment of weakness you actually buy this shelf, at least you can take solace in the fact that someone else out there spent more for their levitating stereo contraption. [Moon Audio]

Tegu magnetic wooden building blocks have, yes, magnets inside that allow them to stick together. This makes them much more Lego-like, albeit without requiring long fingernails to pry them apart. They're also priced like Legos: sets range from $50 to $125. It ain't easy being an elf these days. [Tegu via Ubergizmo]

Some body modders, such as Jesse Jarrell and Steve Haworth, have experimented with the idea, putting rare earth magnets in their fingertips. Their initial idea was to use the magnets to help them carry stuff, but it turns out that using a magnet in your hand to carry things around kills the skin between the magnet and the object. Not good!

Instead, it acts as an extra sense that lets you know when electricity is around.

According to Huffman, the magnet works by moving very slightly, or with a noticeable oscillation, in response to EM fields. This stimulates the somatosensory receptors in the fingertip, the same nerves that are responsible for perceiving pressure, temperature and pain. Huffman and other recipients found they could locate electric stovetops and motors, and pick out live electrical cables. Appliance cords in the United States give off a 60-Hz field, a sensation with which Huffman has become intimately familiar. "It is a light, rapid buzz," he says.

It's pretty awesome, really. It's a way to make your body aware of an invisible energy that you were completely unaware of before. And if that's not what body hacking is all about, then what is? [Wired]

This week, Gizmodo is exploring the enhanced human future in a segment we call This Cyborg Life. It's about what happens when we treat our body less as a sacred object and more as what it is: Nature's ultimate machine.

ZERO G!!!!!!

SPICE RACK!!!!!

YOU HAVEN'T TASTED SPICE UNTIL YOU'VE TASTED IT IN ZERO G!!

ZERO G!!!!!

THE CANISTERS STICK UPSIDE DOWN!!!

ZERO G!!!

THE TASTE IS OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!!!

ZERO G!!!!

COOL!!!

ZERO G!!!

"Hey mom, this saffron just turned me into an astronaut!"

ZERO G!!!

SPICE RACK!!!

THE SPACE RACE JUST GOT A WHOLE LOT TASTIER. [Yanko Design via boing boing's Lisa Katayama, who came up with the brilliant product title]

Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have created a superconducting magnet that generates enough energy to lift lab rats animals off the floor. While there were experiments with tiny animals like frogs and bugs before, this is the first time they have made a large animal like this fly under these conditions. The magnet pushes the water inside the mice up, making them fly.

The amazing fact is that the JPL magnet works at room temperature (Correction: the space the rat is in is room temp, not the magnet) —not the ultra-cooled down environments typical of these magnets—and it's powerful enough to make these rodents levitate, something that wasn't possible before.

The mice were high in more than one way, though. According to researcher Yuanming Liu, the "first mouse actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented." So they gave a mild sedative to the next mouse, who was happy to float. [Live Science via Yahoo News]

Developed by researchers from Israel's Technion University, what makes the robot feasible is that it isn't self-propelled, saving size and engineering complication. Instead, the bot takes advantage of a magnetic field from outside the body, meaning that doctors can not only guide but also propel the the vein crawler forward at 9mm/second. And the robot shouldn't run out of power mid-procedure, stalling it in your body as it drifts for your brain.

When the robot needs to park, those little arms can spring out *shiver* and grab onto vessel walls *shiver*shiver*shiver*shiver*shiver*shiver*shiver*.

Now researchers are looking at beefing up the bot, adding extra tools and even a camera to the mix. And as scary as a robot-filmed reality show starring my aorta may be, it sounds a lot better than having several layers of flesh peeled away via scalpel. [The Inquirer via Newlaunches]

This setup is deceptively simple. There's an electro-magnetized ring of wire sending 1-watt signal at 7.6-something MHz. From there, a carefully placed and wound coil of wire (yellow) sends the magnetic signal in a direction where another smaller coil (green) specifically tuned to receive the power and send it to a tiny speaker. It reminds me of the way a generator or motor work, somehow. The range was about 3 feet and the music was quiet by audible and worked when I moved the speaker in different directions. Impressive!

The chances of this making its way into mobile gadgets that charge with no cables or pads, ever? We're far off. The range and power are dependent on the size of the coils and the exact way they are wound, so they resonate the magnetic signals just right. Maybe a micro array of these, optimized several generations from now, will do the trick.

Or maybe the Dharma institute already has the answers.

Aside from the electromagnetics (in a linear electric motor config) and bolt-action which supports a six-round magazine clip, this gun makes use of a multimeter, a few custom switches to turn the weapon on and off, some PVC piping, a scope, and presumably, a battery pack. My favorite part are the fold-down wood legs for those moments when hitting a can with extreme accuracy is imperative.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The actual power of this sniper rifle-inspired gun isn't overwhelming, as it seems on par with (or maybe a bit more powerful than, a bb gun). But the use of electronics and the clever use of wood through out the design give it a DIY allure that I just can't resist. But check out TechEBlog's vid for your self. It's pretty cool. [TechEBlog]

Would it be cool to have a sofa shaped like a cloud that magically floated a couple of feet off the ground. Sure, why not. But that sliver of magnet on the floor would have to be seriously powerful to support it, and there's nothing anchoring it in place. If this existed, that cloud would shoot off in some direction and end up on the floor every time someone sat on it.

Also, really? A floating cloud couch? You don't live in an anime. Just get a sofa at Ikea like a normal person. [Kootouch via NotCot.org]

The kit contains 1400 10mm x 10mm colored magnetic squares that can be used along with the included template to create a fridge-bound superhero. Naturally, you could also use the pieces to create your own pixelated works of art—although you and I both know that hours of work will eventually break down into magnetic choking hazards strewn randomly across the fridge and/or the floor. [Magnetic Pixels via Swissmiss via OhGizmo]

Florida state wildlife officials are taping magnets to poor crocodiles' heads when they catch them in people's yards or wherever they're not wanted (because people are racist against crocodiles, but for some reason not Crocs), even though they're gentle creatures. Magnets attached to the side of their heads throw off their internal navigational system, which it's believed is based on Earth's magnetic field, so the crocs don't return to where they're caught—which they do, normally, even if you take 'em a long way away. They'll move up to 10 miles a week to get back to where they were.

Personally, if people don't like crocodiles they much, I think they should send monkeys after them. I mean, Donkey Kong does pretty awesome against them, and then it's just nature doing its thing. It took him three tries, but I mean, there haven't been any of them for Donkey to deal with in a while.

Update for commenters complaining about crocs vs. alligators: Reuters is also reporting it's crocodiles they're strapping magnets to, not alligators, though that might be an alligator in the picture, which is from the Florida Fish and Wildlife website. And The University of Florida says there are crocodiles in Florida, they're just endangered (as the original article says, there are about 2,000 in the wild in Florida). [TC Palm via Slashgear]

P.S. I ate alligator once. Sorry if it was like your cousin or something Mr. Crocodile.

Dirk had an accident. Below is the X-ray showing his totally crushed finger tip. It took 1 1/2 hours of surgery to remove the shattered bones and repair the damage. Medically speaking, he crushed his right index finger distal phalange. The magnets had a 50 cm (20 inch) separation when they decided to fly together.

Neodymium magnets are rare-earth magnets and are the among the strongest made today. Their strength is graded on a scale that ranges from N24 to N55—this particular magnet clocked in at N45. Sufficed to say, these magnets are dangerous. To be honest, this guy is probably lucky he didn't lose his whole hand.

Dirk posted several shots of his mangled finger online in an effort to warn people about the risks of purchasing these magnets—but I spared you the goriest of them. For those of you who are not squeamish (and not sitting at work) hit the following link to witness the horror in its entirety. [Magnetnerd via Geekologie]

$11 at BlueQ[Nerd Approved]

What if "the earth itself is already encoded with someone else's data, and that, down there in crustal formations of rock, crystalline archives shimmer"?

I like alien conspiracy, and the idea of seeding the earth for data storage instead of food harvest is interesting. The earth's drive heads would have to be supersonic jets and the latency would be hell, but don't let reality stop you from enjoying this well written fantasy post by Geoff at [BLDGBLOG]

The magnets have the look of CS3 on a Mac, and include a number of contextual windows, palettes, and the all-important menu bar for creating the perfect fake destop. They retail for $65-95 depending on size and number of magnets, and can be found at the designers' website. [Technabob]

Because the iPhone has a plastic case, a self-adhesive ring with a magnet must first be affixed to the area around the camera lens. After that, it's a simple matter of bringing the add-on lens in contact with the magnet. In fact, the wide angle, telephoto and fish-eye lenses can be used on just about any device with appropriately-sized webcams and cameras. How well the lenses work is unknown, but at least they won't break the bank at $17 apiece. [USB Fever via Gear Diary]

The woman here is attempting to smooth wrinkles and slow the aging process of cells by wearing a magnetized neck collar that looks more like some sort of horrific medieval torture device. Fortunately, today we have complex plastic surgery procedures that create masterpieces like this one:

Ahh...progress. [Nevver and Life via Boing Boing]

That is just the kind of power needed to test the properties of high-temperature superconductors like iron oxyarsenide, which may result in better, cheaper MRI machines and high-voltage power lines. It could also be used for certain zero-gravity experiments and magnetic propulsion systems that could eliminate the need for traditional rockets down the line. Researchers have been able to create magnetic fields over 100 T for years, but if successful, this would be the first magnet that could repeatedly hold up to the strain. According to Greg Boebinger, director of the Magnet Lab, the magnet will have to resist Lorentz forces “equivalent to the explosive force of 200 sticks of dynamite packed into a volume of space the size of a marble.” [IEEE Spectrum Online via New Launches via Dvice]