NASA developing an airbag for helicopters — for the entire 'copter [NASA]

NASA's "deployable energy absorber" may appear to be a couple of oversized sponges attached to the bottom of a helicopter, but you could be looking at a safety system that helps occupants survive a helicopter crash — or even any kind of air-to-ground impact.
It's a bit like an airbag for helicopters, one that NASA aerospace engineer Karen Jackson, one of the driving minds behind the project, said of the technology that she'd 'like to think the research we're doing is going to end up in airframes and will potentially save lives.'

Right now, though, things are still very early. The test you see in the video above is of a helicopter falling rather gently from a height of 35 feet. Even still, the dummies inside didn't look so stressed out after it. Wait — do crash dummies ever show signs of stress?

[DVICE via CNET]

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Holographic laser head-up display, small enough for side mirror

Increasingly popular head-up displays aren't only for BMWs, Corvettes , Cadillacs, and F-16 jets. Light Blue Optics is making the tech more practical, creating a new projection device that's so small, it'll fit in a car's side mirror. It shows you an image that looks like it's about 6 feet behind you, superimposed over the road.

This trickery is possible because of a miniaturized holographic laser projector that's about a tenth the size of the head-up display system in the BMW 5 Series. It's small enough to install in a variety of configurations, and will work equally well on the windshield, or rearview mirrors and side mirrors.

These displays will be safer, too. The data appears to your eyes to be the same distance as other objects on the road, making it so you don't need to waste time focusing. Says Light Blue Optics head of business development Edward Buckley, 'At speeds of 100 kilometers an hour, this can cost you 22 meters in stopping distance.' Too bad Buckley says we won't see this technology in vehicles for four more years.
[DVICE via Technology Review]

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Rear-View Helmet Has Eyes In the Back of Its Head [Safety]

The folks behind the Reevu MSX1 figured out a clever way to give bikers eyes in the backs of their heads without the need for any fancy pants electronics. By glancing up, the wearer can see what’s behind them, thanks to a mirror arrangement that bends light around your noggin like a periscope.

It seems to tick all of the right safety boxes as well, with webBikeWorld rating it as a high-quality helmet and adding that it is “built like a tank.” At it is not cheap, but no good helmets are.

Price: 384$


[UberReview via WebBikeWorld via DVICE]

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Nanomagical Material Can Make Nuclear Reactors Safer [Science]

Fighting cancer or making nuclear reactors that constantly self-repair themselves, helping to avoid the possibility of another Chernobyl. Clearly, nanotechnology will either save Earth or convert us into Borgs. Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists are betting on the first option.

Their new research work—published in Science—could make nuclear reactor much safer by using nanocrystalline materials. These materials are capable of patching the vacancies left by the atom collisions that result from atomic reactions. This is how it works:



Their computer simulations have shown that this materials can work at a large scale, using a newly discovered event called the 'loading-unloading' effect. The discovery will help build reactors that are resistant to the decay caused by the nuclear reactions themselves, which include 'swelling, hardening or embrittlement can manifest in the material and lead to catastrophic failure.'

Anything that can avoid 'catastrophic failure' seems like a good idea to me.
[Gizmodo via Los Alamos National Laboratory via Daily Mail]

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No more scorched shirts with the Auto Lift iron [Ironing]

We all get distracted at times, whether it's the UPS guy at the door, or a baby's cry, and it takes only a brief moment to take our focus away from the task at hand. Normally, we can just pick up where we left off a few minutes later, but if you're ironing, the smell of scorched cotton will soon remind us of what we were doing before being so rudely interrupted.

Scorched clothes could become a thing of the past with the Auto Lift iron from Ariete. This Italian stroke of genius has a sensor that knows when you're gripping the handle, and only then will it retract the little feet that hold the iron up away from your fancy threads. Let the handle go, and the iron quickly lifts up again. There are additional benefits to this face down position, as the iron will be more stable with its heavy plate in the face down position, and you're less likely to fry yourself by brushing against the hot surface.

The Auto-Lift is available in Europe for about $95. Let's hope their US importer brings it in soon.

[DVICE via Appliancist via Ariete]

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