Gearfuse Technology, Science, Culture & More

Mats of extremophile bacteria? Bio-colonized pigments in an ancient aboriginal petroglyph? Or an image of our nearest planetary neighbor? Answer after the jump.

Medical gadgets and the iPhone would seem like a match made in heaven, but device makers have had a hard time finding appealing solutions. Is a blood pressure cuff the perfect fit?

The Bradshaw paintings, petroglyphs found on the lands of Australia's Wanjina Wunggurr Wilinggi people, are perhaps 46 to 70,000 years old�yet their colors remain bright, their figures sharply delineated. A new study suggests that the colors remain vivid because they're alive.

A mystery deepens as more redwing blackbirds turn up dead in the America South. It's likely not UFOs or secret weapons, but the birds' instinctual flocking behavior, that's to blame.

Another advertisement from the Land of People Who Want to Be Toys. Video after the jump.

A team of scientist at Purdue University takes a biomimetic approach to engineering solar cells, appropriating the components of living systems to novel ends.

The decline of experimental results isn't something many scientists want to talk about, writes Jonah Lehrer. But perhaps when it comes to science, such disappointment isn't a bug but a feature.

Imagery that comes to grips with black holes, places where the equations of the physicists seem to stretch unto breaking. Videos after the jump.

A laboratory in Montana that limns the bases of avian flight; a tumblr that collects evidence of our airborne technological fantasies.

The strenuous outsider scholarship of underground intellectual Steve Duncan charts the history of New York public transit, surreptitiously. Video after the jump.