Dress in style. Mugabe-style

Just in time for the new year, followers of Zimbabwe's arch-dictator Robert Mugabe have thankfully come up with a new line of clothing adorned with their hero's signature. Their philosophy is to allow their fellow citizens to share in the dashing flair of their supremo and dress in "style, comfort and attitude." What's not to love? Read more here and remember to bring your own wheelbarrow of cash to pay for the goods.

Artist Nick Veasey has X-rayed a whole Christmas tree. Sure takes the surprise out of Christmas gifts. From gizmodo.

Santa flight training

Santa uses the latest tech to update his flight skills. Wouldn't you know it-the man's a real top gun!!

RIP Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong Il

It must be quite fitting that within twenty four hours we have learned of the passing of both Vaclav Havel, one of the people most responsible for the fall of Communism and that of Kim Jong Il, the last remaining Stalinist despot on Earth. Mr Havel we will genuinely miss as an inspiration to follow in doing what is morally right and to reject both tyranny and violence. Mr Kim however will be sorely missed more for his hairstyle and oversized glasses than for his leadership of North Korea, under which millions have been starved to their deaths.

Calvin's snowman torture

A video tribute to Calvin's nightmare snowman torture scenes. Merry Christmas!!

RIP Cesaria Evora

It is with great sadness that we learned today of the passing of the Cap-Verdian singer Cesaria Evora, whose beautiful voice and great sense of swing made her one of the world's most admired musicians. Her full obituary can be found on the BBC's website.

Sounds like shit

I could not help myself but to post this for everyone's enjoyment: this Canadian advertising studio are bragging about their ability to make any shit sound great by, well, literally making shit sound like music to your ears. Can't make this stuff up.

Only in Switzerland

Apparently a team of materials scientists from EPFL in Switzerland have just created a new recipe for 18k gold that's much harder than steel in order to make it virtually unscratchable. The complicated process involves mixing gold with boron carbide, a very hard ceramic usually found in bulletproof vests. I'm guessing now it's only a matter of time until VIP's can wear a bulletproof jacket made of gold. So much more fashionable than kevlar! Read details on physorg here.

Dictators rule

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest comedy. What else is there to say?

Hints of Higgs boson found around 125 GeV

Today the two teams for experiments ATLAS and CMS at CERN in Geneva have announced that both detectors have found signs pointing to the existence of the Higgs boson in the 124-126 GeV range. Their results are not yet conclusive enough to formally claim a discovery of the much-anticipated particle but the fact that both detectors have produced consistent results strongly indicates the Higgs is indeed for real and that its (relatively) low-energy level of 125 GeV is compatible with the predictions of the Standard Model and its Supersymmetry extensions. This is a momentous event for particle physics and all of a science: we might now have a concrete explanation for gravity! See press release for CERN here.

Jesus responds to Rick Perry's ad

Jesus Responds to Rick Perry's "Strong" Ad from DC Pierson

For those of you who have an interest in following the U.S. primary elections for the Republican party, you will appreciate this parody of Rick Perry's "Strong" advert, in which Mr Perry essentially proves once and for all that he's just like George W. Bush-except without the brains...

Owlets are the new kittens

The new online meme after LOLcats: petting cute owlets!! Now my mood is so totally up again!!

Mésentente cordiale

As a Frenchman living in the UK for the past eight years I now have a unique perspective on the ongoing struggle that Great Britain and its prime minister, David Cameron, are facing regarding the euro crisis. In many ways I have sympathy for Mr Cameron, who just tried to veto the latest EU treaty change to impose fiscal austerity measures as well as a Tobin-style tax on financial transactions across Europe. Obviously the eurozone crisis remains a gigantic mess, which British politicians had correctly predicted over ten years ago back when the euro was first introduced. None of this of course is Britain's fault and yet it is starting to exact a heavy toll on the British economy.

That said, it is hard to see how Mr Cameron's go-it-alone approach will really either help the City of London and its financial institutions or even spare Britain the consequences of a full-blown sovereign debt crisis on the continent.

For one thing, trading in euros now accounts for just under half of the business being conducted within the City of London. The fact that the British government is flatly refusing to submit the British banks to the new financial transaction tax will now be giving an excuse for France and Germany to attempt to claw back all this euro financial business to Paris and Frankfurt. If Britain does not want to play along with the eurozone countries and the EU as a whole, then it is fair game to compete with by all means, including by restricting the UK's access to the common market. Although this may not be an immediate threat as long as Britain remains a member of the larger EU club, this is bound to become a growing risk as London drifts away from the continent politically.

Then of course there is the problem of the eurozone debt crisis and the effect that a possible default of one or more of its members would have on the British financial system and its overall economy. Because trading with continental Europe accounts for roughly 40% of Britain's GDP, this is bound to be huge. The exact consequences on Britain will of course depend wildly on how the crisis will be dealt with, whether through a devaluation of the euro or simply haircuts that will be imposed on Spanish and Italian bondholders. For instance if the euro were to be devalued, this would have an immediate impact on the competitiveness of British exports to the rest of the EU market. This is why I would argue the British government ought to stay in the political game of the EU for as long as it can, in order to influence the outcome and the manner in which the crisis is being handled.

For both of these reasons, clearly Mr Cameron's approach may end up severely harming Britain's interests as opposed to defending them with the fierce bite of a proverbial British bulldog. (Cartoon by Martin Rowson from The Guardian).

Mission: totally impossible

What would Mr Phelps do?

Ach mein Gott!!

Thank you, Steve Bell for another good laugh... can't make this stuff up!!

New elements in town

Today the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has endorsed the names for the two latest elements to be added to the periodic table: Flerovium for element 114 and Livermorium for element 116. They are named after the two laboratories where the research was conducted to synthesize the two nuclei in a particle accelerator. Read the full story here on physorg.com.

Strad 2.0

As reported on the always interesting BBC, a team of engineers led by American radiologist Dr Steven Sirr, who also happens to be a keen violinist, have achieved the feat of creating a near-perfect copy of an ancient Stradivarius violin, from a series of thousands of CAT scans.

Dr Sirr had been scanning the structures of violins as a side interest to his work in medicine since 1988 and with a friend violin maker, John Waddle, finally borrowed the famous "Betts" Stradivarius from the US Library of Congress. The two men, working alongside another violin maker, Steve Rossow, completed the series of X-ray scans and then used the structural and density information to build several replicas meant to be as faithful as possible to the original thanks to a computer-controlled milling machine.

The resulting instruments are apparently very convincing, with the copies producing a sound very close to the original. This they hope, will give a chance to young musicians to have access to cheaper copies of the great instruments to further their professional careers as soloists. Next Dr Sirr intends to make a copy of a Stradivarius cello.

Only in Arizona

Arizona's Scottsdale gun club now offering pictures with Santa. Naughty kids better behave or they will be shot. Read story here in the Telegraph.

Lang Lang encores with iPad

You've gotta love this video of Chinese pianist Lang Lang playing encore on his Apple iPad, it really is amazing!

Only in Britain

This morning a trailer truck has apparently got into an accident on the M1 motorway outside London. Its cargo: 20 tons of Marmite, which was spilled onto the road. I'm guessing the road maintenance crew will be needing quite a few slices of toasted bread to clean this up... find news article here: I'm not making it up!

The (steady) robot will see you

Today some EU research agency has announced the launch into the wild of their latest creation: a surgical bot with a system that steadies the tremors of the operating surgeon's own hands by a factor of ten. It even gives haptic feedback! So cool!! Apparently the EU spends around 400m euros every year on robotics research... well who knew the EU still had 400m euros in it's coffers?? Now I'm feeling so confident financially I'll just go out and blow some cash right now!!

Fast Swiss

Former Swiss airman Yves Rossy has done it again: this time he flies his jetpack in a formation with a couple other Albatross jets above the Alps. Hang on to your 'chutes!

Race for fast computers

The excellent Dan Lyons, aka Fake Steve Jobs, has just published this great piece in The Daily Beast about the race between China and the USA to build the world's fastest computer. Apparently the boffins at the American national labs are worried about playing second-fiddle to their counterparts across the Pacific. This is a rather moronic pursuit in my view, since so far as I know neither side has really figured out how to write software for these silicon beasts. All this money would be better spent researching algorithms and computer languages as opposed to stacking more and more (poorly engineered) processors from Intel in the world's largest pile of pizza boxes. Conclusion: they're both losers.

Off to MARRS!

Your favorite neighborhood QB is baaaack!! after being lazy about blogging for so many months I was inspired by the awesome coolness of Nasa's latest mission to Mars to get back to typing about science, technology and anything exciting again. For those of you who are craving to know all about the latest rover soon to roll on the red planet, Curiosity, here's for you Nasa's dedicated site. And for all, please enjoy the MARRS classic old-school techno song above. Now get dancing!!